6
Robert Frank
From the Bus
- Estimate
- $15,000 - 25,000
$35,000
Lot Details
Gelatin silver print, printed 1980s.
1958
12 3/4 x 8 1/2 in. (32.4 x 21.6 cm)
Signed, titled 'NYC' and dated 'ca. 1955' in ink in the margin.
Specialist
Full-Cataloguing
Catalogue Essay
In 1958 Robert Frank began a series of photographs he took while riding the bus through New York City. He printed many of these images with a distinctive gray margin, including the print offered here, “to heighten the feeling of seeing from the inside to the outside.”
He wrote: “The Bus carries me thru the City, I look out the window, I look at the people on the street, the Sun and the Traffic Lights. It has to do with the desperation and endurance --- I have always felt that about living in New York. Compassion and probably some understanding for New York’s Concrete and its people, walking . . . waiting . . . standing up . . . holding hands . . . the summer of 1958” (Robert Frank: Moving Out, p. 204).
He wrote: “The Bus carries me thru the City, I look out the window, I look at the people on the street, the Sun and the Traffic Lights. It has to do with the desperation and endurance --- I have always felt that about living in New York. Compassion and probably some understanding for New York’s Concrete and its people, walking . . . waiting . . . standing up . . . holding hands . . . the summer of 1958” (Robert Frank: Moving Out, p. 204).
Provenance
Literature
Robert Frank
Swiss | 1924As 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.
Browse ArtistFrank 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.