Texas oilman's Ansel Adams photo gets $988,000 at auction

A West Texas oilman’s mural-sized print of an Ansel Adams photo has sold for nearly $1 million at auction

Auction-Ansel Adams (The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust)

A West Texas oilman's mural-sized print of an Ansel Adams photo has sold for nearly $1 million at an auction.

Sotheby's New York, the auction house said Tuesday that “The Grand Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming” sold for $988,000, a record price for Adams at auction.

The photograph, taken on commission for the Department of Interior in 1942, shows a view of the mountains over Jackson Hole. Sotheby's said it's believed to be one of less than 10 mural-sized prints of the image in existence and was acquired from the photographer s descendants.

David Arrington collected 119 works, including single prints and portfolios, which were sold at auction Monday for $6.4 million, Sotheby’s said.

Sotheby's said Arrington, 60, has been interested in photography since he was a teen. Arrington said in a video posted on the auction house's website that he's collected 650 of Adams' photographs, and that it was time to let go of some.

“I’ve been asked numerous times: How come you collected so many of one artist? And the only thing I could come up with was: I’m a Texan, and we overdo everything,” Arrington said in the video.