The Expert Eye

Daile Kaplan is a true champion of photography.  As Director of the Photographs Department at Swann Galleries she introduced dedicated sales of vernacular photographs and photobooks, setting numerous world auction records along the way. In addition to her work at Swann, she's an author, curator, and was a featured appraiser on PBS' Antiques Roadshow for over 20 years.  Listen on to hear Daile's first-hand experiences during a time that the photo market seemed to be evolving at lightning speed. 

A trip to Istanbul in 2011 revealed several mysteries, including a portrait of a dark-eyed, scantily clad woman whose true identity has been elusive for over 100 years. Who is Kaloma and why is she in so many antique stores throughout the world?

In the summer of 2025, Aimee participated in the 30th season of PBS’ beloved program, Antiques Roadshow. As a volunteer appraiser, it’s always exciting to see what viewers bring to the show. This time, however, a guest brought some photographs that blew her away… it was a huge collection of portraits of dogs smoking pipes, collected over a period of 20 years. It was the perfect chance to play photo detective yet again.

In my continuing series of conversations with people who have shaped the Photographs market, I move back to focusing on the auction world.  I sat down with Rick Wester, who, in addition to being a private dealer, consultant, and gallery owner, he has headed up the Photographs departments of 2 of 3 major auction houses, and has put together some of the most memorable sales of the last 40 years.  I sat down to find out what it was like to be working in the wild west of the auction world during the 1990s and 2000s, and what lessons he learned during the ride.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard’s series of photographs featuring his family in unexpected places and costumes are hard to describe but entirely captivating. He found inspiration for a series of photographs from a book published in 1911 by Ambrose Bierce called ‘The Devil’s Dictionary.’ After handling one of Meatyard’s prints at Sotheby’s, Aimee gets to the bottom of what these two things have in common, while discovering what demons were hard at work in old printing workshops.