Robert Frank

oversized, titled and dated '1956' and signed and dated '1977' in ink in the margin, annotation in pencil on the reverse, framed, a Bloom Collection label on the reverse, 1955, printed in the late 1960s or early 1970s

Sotheby's New York, 7 October 1998, Sale 7194, Lot 398

Private Collection, New York

Sotheby's New York, 17 October 2006, Sale 8227, Lot 205

The Americans, no. 18

Sarah Greenough, Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans, pp. vi-vii, 232, and 466, and Contact no. 18

U. S. Camera [Annual] 1958, pp. 106-07 

'Robert Frank,' Aperture, 1961, p. 9

Sue Davis, Ainslie Ellis, et al., Concerning Photography: Some Thoughts About Reading Photographs, pl. 34

Tod Papageorge, Walker Evans and Robert Frank: An Essay on Influence, p. 41

Robert Frank, Robert Frank, pl. 34

Sarah Greenough, Joel Snyder, David Travis, and Colin Westerbeck, On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography, p. 357

Sarah Greenough and Philip Brookman, Robert Frank: Moving Out, pp. 172 and 196

Peter Galassi, Walker Evans & Company, pl. 137

Andrew Roth, ed., The Book of 101 Books, p. 151

Cruel and Tender: The Real in the Twentieth-Century Photograph (Tate Modern), p. 109

Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History, Volume I, p. 247

Stuart Alexander, 'Robert Frank,' in Mark Haworth-Booth, ed., The Folio Society Book of the 100 Most Important Photographs, pp. 158-59

Karen Hellman, The Window in Photographs, p. 13

David Campany, The Open Road: Photography & The American Road Trip, p. 43 

Nicholas Dawidoff, ‘Hidden America,’ The New York Times Magazine, 5 July 2015, p. 42

This impressive large print, on heavy double-weight paper with a glossy surface, is in generally excellent condition. The margin corners are lightly bumped, and the upper and lower right margin corners are somewhat creased. 'Frank 302' is written upside-down in an unidentified hand in pencil on the reverse.
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.

New Orleans (Trolley) is perhaps the most indelible photograph from The Americans.  It was chosen as the cover image for the first American edition of the book, and has thus become the representative icon for the whole series.  As a commentary on race relations in 1950s America, it stands as one of the most culturally resonant photographs in Frank’s oeuvre.  In terms of Frank’s masterful composition, it is perhaps his most aesthetically accomplished work.  The large-format print offered here is a dramatic and nuanced rendering which allows for a more complete engagement with the photograph than smaller prints of the image.  

Like The Americans itself, New Orleans (Trolley) is comprised of a sequence of individual pictures.  The separation between the white and African-American passengers, who are framed within the trolley’s windows, is a clear representation of segregation.  In one window, a white woman seems to cast a disapproving eye upon the photographer.  In the next are two well-dressed children, both wary and fretful.  But it is the figure in the fourth window – an African-American man who looks out beseechingly from his frame – that gives the image its dramatic charge.  All are caught by Frank’s camera in an enigmatic narrative of separation and alienation. 

The photograph is a sophisticated combination of elements.  Above the passengers are the trolley’s upper windows, whose reflections appear as semi-abstract shapes and forms.  Below are the riveted metal sections of the trolley’s side.  The overall effect of the repeating rectilinear shapes is like a contact sheet or a strip of motion picture film.  Not long after The Americans was published, Frank would redirect his creative energies toward filmmaking, occasionally making compositions of enlarged filmstrips and contact sheets.  In the 1970s he once again began to make photographs in earnest. His work since then has consisted almost exclusively of combinations of separate photographs which function much like the vignettes in the windows of New Orleans (Trolley).

“It was the vision that emanated from the book that lead not only me, but my whole generation of photographers out into the American landscape"

Joel Meyerowitz