Robert Frank - Photographs New York Thursday, April 8, 2021 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    The artist to Werner Zryd, Zurich
    Private Collection, Zurich

  • Literature

    Frank, Black White And Things, p. 24
    Frank, Hold Still—Keep Going, p. 103
    Greenough, Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans, p. 107, pl. 50
    Greenough and Brookman, Robert Frank: Moving Out, p. 30

  • Catalogue Essay

    This photograph was originally in the collection of Werner Zryd, a Swiss graphic designer with a long association with Robert Frank. Zryd was the designer of Frank’s 1952 maquette, Black White and Things. Illustrated with actual photographs, and produced in an edition of only 3, Black White and Things represented a deepening of Frank’s understanding of presenting images in a sequence and is a direct precursor to his masterwork, The Americans, produced later in the decade. The book is broken into three sections indicated by the title, and the image offered here is plate 25 in the Things section. In the book it is given the alternate title Men of Air/New York, and appears across the page spread from an image of a Catholic festival in Spain entitled Men of Wood/Malaga. As of this writing, it is believed that a print of this image has never before appeared at auction.

  • 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.

    View More Works

35

Macy Parade, NYC

1948
Gelatin silver print, probably printed in the 1950s.
13 7/8 x 9 3/8 in. (35.2 x 23.8 cm)
Signed, titled, dated in ink and a Werner Zryd, Zurich collection stamp on the verso.

Estimate
$30,000 - 50,000 

Sold for $52,920

Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs

Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Deputy Chairman, Americas

 

Photographs

New York Auction 8 April 2021