- 20
Robert Frank
Description
- Robert Frank
- 'Butte, Montana' (View from Hotel Window)
- titled and dated in ink on recto
- Gelatin silver print
Provenance
Literature
Sarah Greenough, Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans, pp. 240 and 468, and Contact no. 26
Robert Frank, The Lines of My Hand (Yugensha), p. 83
U. S. Camera/Camera 35 Annual: America, Photographic Statements (1972), p. 136
Robert Frank (Aperture), p. 29
Tod Papageorge, Walker Evans and Robert Frank: An Essay on Influence, p. 13
Mike Weaver, ed., The Art of Photography, 1839-1989, pl. 326
Sarah Greenough and Philip Brookman, Robert Frank: Moving Out, p. 188
Keith Davis, An American Century of Photography, from Dry-Plate to Digital: The Hallmark Photographic Collection, pl. 301
George Webber, 'Robert Frank's Window,' Doubletake, Fall 2001, pp. 114-15
Robert Frank: Story Lines, frontispiece 4
Peter Galassi, Robert Frank: In America, p. 84
David Campany, The Open Road: Photography & The American Road Trip, p. 48
Condition
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
Catalogue Note
Well-known as a rough mining town, Butte saw its population peak in the 1920s. New in 1955 was the Berkeley Pit, soon to become the largest open-pit mine in the United States. Frank was drawn to this massive-scale display of American industrial might. He took a room at the Finlen Hotel, the tallest in Butte. His window overlooked the gaping mine that swallowed entire neighborhoods on the east side of town. Frank spent several days there, photographing from this window several times by day and by night, with and without the curtain, framing vertically and horizontally. He finally settled on this version, made in partial darkness just after a rain shower.
A few years after this trip, Frank travelled to Florida with Jack Kerouac who attempted to describe how Frank captured such bleak beauty, ‘Contrary to the general belief about photography, you don’t need bright sunlights: the best, moodiest pictures are taken in the dim light of almost dusk, or of rainy days. . .’ (‘On the Road to Florida,’ Evergreen Review, no. 74, January 1970, p. 43).