LOT Phillips de Pury & Company  /  PHOTOGRAPHS PART I  / 

31

ROBERT FRANK (American, b. Switzerland, 1924) NEW YEAR'S DAY, PARIS

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ROBERT FRANK (American, b. Switzerland, 1924) NEW YEAR'S DAY, PARIS
ROBERT FRANK (American, b. Switzerland, 1924) NEW YEAR'S DAY, PARIS "CREDIT PHOTO TO ROBERT FRANK" stamped in black ink on verso vintage gelatin silver print 12 3/8 x 8 1/8 in. (31.4 x 20.6 cm) 1950 PROVENANCE From the artist to John G. Morris (circa 1950), NEW YORK LITERATURE "Der Photograph Robert Frank," NEUE ZÜRCHER ZEITUNG (November 1, 1951), Morgenausgabe Nr. 2411, Blatt 3, Wochenende 45, [p.1] (illustrated) "Life Announces the Winners of the Young Photographers Contest," LIFE, vol. 31, no. 22 (November 26, 1951), p. 21 (illustrated) Ralph Samuels, ed. UNIVERSAL PHOTO ALMANAC 1952, New York, 1951, p. 106 (illustrated) Robert Frank, BLACK, WHITE AND THINGS, [New York], 1952, n.p. (illustrated; this is a handmade book that exists in only three copies) Byron Dobell, "Feature Pictures: Robert Frank...The Photographer as Poet," U.S. CAMERA, vol. 17, no. 9 (September 1954), p. 80 (illustrated) "Zwei Photos von Robert Frank," DU, vol. 16, no. 1 (January 1956), p. 27 (illustrated) "Robert Frank," APERTURE, vol. 9, no. 1 (1961), p. 5 (illustrated) Robert Frank, THE LINES OF MY HAND, Tokyo, 1972, p. 31 (illustrated) Robert Frank, THE LINES OF MY HAND, New York, 1972, n.p. (illustrated) ROBERT FRANK: FOTOGRAFIAS/FILMS 1948/1984, Valencia, 1985, p. 67 (illustrated) Robert Frank, FLOWER IS..., Tokyo, 1987, pl. 21 (illustrated) Robert Frank, THE LINES OF MY HAND, Zurich, 1989, p. 40 (illustrated) "L'Oeil de Déjà-Vu," DÉJÀ-VU [Tokyo], no. 1 (1990), p. 9 (illustrated) Robert Frank, BLACK, WHITE AND THINGS, Zurich, 1994, pl. 21 (illustrated; this is the trade edition of the 1952 handmade book) Robert Frank easily could have witnessed this scene by chance on the streets of Paris. In fact, however, American photographer Todd Webb and his wife, Lucille, hosted a New Year's Eve party at their studio in Paris. Among those in attendance were Robert Frank, Elliott Erwitt, and Louis Stettner. The next day, Frank accompanied Stettner, who had bought a tulip to surprise a young woman he met at the party. Frank caught the moment just as a pipe-smoking Parisian passed by. Later that year, Frank returned to New York with this print in his portfolio. When he made the rounds of photo editors, he visited John G. Morris, then at the LADIES' HOME JOURNAL. Morris did not have work for the young photographer, but when he commented on how much he liked this picture, Frank offered it to him. The appeal of this image was immediate and long-lasting. Near the end of 1951, LIFE magazine, arguably at its zenith, held a photo contest for young photographers. This picture was among the three that LIFE chose to represent Frank's second prize-winning entry in the Individual Pictures category. Selected for reproduction by a variety of publications, Frank himself has included it in a number of his books including BLACK, WHITE AND THINGS, a handmade book of mounted photographs that exists in an edition of 3 that he produced in 1952 and was subsequently published in paperback in 1994. He also included it in all three of the variant editions of his autobiographical book, THE LINES OF MY HAND. When this photograph was published in LIFE Frank said, "When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice...I can be happy if I have a few good pictures, no one has a very good one very often" (LIFE, November 21, 1951, p. 21).
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