Taken the year following his groundbreaking The Americans Robert Frank’s Inauguration Day (Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.) carries the same hallmarks of composition and artistry in documenting this American scene. Just as in his most celebrated photograph of the trolley in New Orleans, Frank uses the natural divide of the window to break up the picture plane, highlighting the newly reelected politicians tasked with representing and handling the diversity and impending social changes of the American public in a post war period. The older men set further into the background on the left, while the two younger figures isolated and obstructed behind the stately leaders allude to the shifts and disparity in generations and gender. The glare from the lights, patterned wallpaper, and reflections of the neighboring windows bounce across the glass highlighting Frank’s always present artistic nuances. A variation of this scene was published in Frank’s book The Lines of My Hand in 1989 and only once has another variant of this photograph been previously offered at auction.