Robert Frank - Photographs New York Tuesday, October 3, 2017 | Phillips

Photographs

New York 3 October 2017

  • Provenance

    Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica

  • Literature

    Frank, The Lines of My Hand, n.p., there titled Chicago Loop
    Galassi, Robert Frank in America, p. 144

  • Catalogue Essay

    Robert Frank recognized the distinct role the automobile played in mid-century American culture. Having spent an extensive amount of time traveling on the road while creating The Americans, cars became a regular theme in his photographs, grounding his images in both a specific time and place. Taken in the Chicago Loop, Chicago, 1959 captures the rear bumper of a 1959 Cadillac perched at the top of a parking garage, basking in the sunlight, its stylish angularity projecting out from the surrounding rectangular buildings. Shot from below and featuring an almost heavenly bright light shining on the Cadillac, Frank presents the car as an object of reverence and harbinger of the American dream.

  • Artist Biography

    Robert Frank

    Swiss • 1924

    As one of the leading visionaries of mid-century American photography, Robert Frank has created an indelible body of work, rich in insight and poignant in foresight. In his famed series The Americans, Frank travelled the United States, capturing the parade of characters, hierarchies and imbalances that conveyed his view of the great American social landscape.

    Frank broke the mold of what was considered successful documentary photography with his "snapshot aesthetic." It is Frank's portrayal of the United States through grit and grain that once brought his work to the apex of criticism, but has now come to define the art of documentary photography.

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259

Robert Frank

Chicago

1959
Gelatin silver print, printed later.
15 1/4 x 22 7/8 in. (38.7 x 58.1 cm)
Signed, titled and dated '1951' [sic] in ink in the margin.

Estimate
$50,000 - 70,000 

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Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs

Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Deputy Chairman, Americas

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Photographs

New York 3 October 2017