Earlier in the year, I posted The Standalone Photograph — about what happens to a picture when it is plucked from a series. That article was inspired by a Square Print Sale, where Magnum photographers and their estates sell prints for a limited period.
Well, the sale is happening again this week (closing 1 November 2026 at 11:59 pm EST), with the theme being Fact/Fiction. There are 75 photographs for sale, all of them questioning the line between truth and imagination, documentation and storytelling.
Here are my ten favourites:
Through the looking-glass. I love the execution of this beach/mirror portrait, where the figure is reduced to limbs in the primordial sand.
Wittgenstein wrote: “If a lion could talk, we could not understand him”. Elliott Erwitt might disagree. His lion, driving a car in California, appears to be totally at home in the human world. Or maybe not. Look closer at the passenger and you’ll see a depth of doubt and feeling wholly alien to her driver.
An incredible early colour photograph from one of Magnum’s co-founders, George Rodger. A stark metaphor for our times.
If you haven’t seen Raoul Peck’s documentary about Ernest Cole, I urge you to do so. What would otherwise be a beautifully composed, melancholy image becomes tragic once you know Cole’s life.
Black dogs haunt the imagination. They are sinister enough in dreams, but what is this shadowy guard dog seeing in us?
Henri Cartier-Bresson, another Magnum founder, wrote about the importance of the decisive moment. Saman honours this heritage in this incredible image of an acrobat’s stark eyes in Cuba’s Compañía Cirabana Circus.
Meiselas is better known for her war photography; here she is experimenting with a Duane Michals aesthetic. Photographers are rarely in the photo, but we can feel their ghostly presence.
This photo could only be Mexican, right? No other country is so comfortable with the idea of death-in-life. A devastating image.
A modern Canute, pushing against the tide in a nearly empty restaurant. Christopher Nolan has spent this year pushing ancient Greek mythology into our consciousness, but I prefer the culture of modern Greek tavernas.
There is something too iconic about this photograph. It recalls so many American tropes, from Edward Hopper to William Eggleston to David Lynch, that it becomes overwhelming.
The Magnum Square Print Sale closes on Sunday 1 November at 11:59 pm EST, which is 4:59 am on Monday in the UK. Signed or estate-stamped 6×6" prints start at £110, and for the first time some photographers are also offering a larger 9×9" format. Browse the full sale here.