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Lot Essay
Robert Frank was awarded a Guggenheim grant in 1955 and spent the subsequent two years criss-crossing the country making photographs. Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey is the opening photograph of the resulting publication, The Americans, first published in 1958 in France and the following year by Grove Press in New York. The U.S. edition contained the now-famous introduction by friend and Beat poet, Jack Kerouac.
One of the most influential books in post-war American photography, The Americans is a masterful exposition and critique of Frank’s adopted country as seen in the 1950s. The American flag is a motif that Frank employs and deploys with critical potency. Taken during a parade in Hoboken, New Jersey during the summer of 1955, the image depicts two solitary figures standing in upper-story windows of a brick building, half-obscured by shadow and the flag draped between the windows. As the opening image, Parade – Hoboken serves as both introduction and thesis statement. Frank commented that, '[it is] a threatening picture,' setting the tone for the rest of the book, and cementing its role as one of the greatest of Frank’s images.
Other prints of this image reside in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
One of the most influential books in post-war American photography, The Americans is a masterful exposition and critique of Frank’s adopted country as seen in the 1950s. The American flag is a motif that Frank employs and deploys with critical potency. Taken during a parade in Hoboken, New Jersey during the summer of 1955, the image depicts two solitary figures standing in upper-story windows of a brick building, half-obscured by shadow and the flag draped between the windows. As the opening image, Parade – Hoboken serves as both introduction and thesis statement. Frank commented that, '[it is] a threatening picture,' setting the tone for the rest of the book, and cementing its role as one of the greatest of Frank’s images.
Other prints of this image reside in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.