Skip to main content

Robert Frank Black and White Photography

American, Swiss, 1924-2019

Though he was born in Switzerland, photographer Robert Frank’s greatest legacy was his representation of places and figures across the United States, the bulk of which was published in a seminal book titled The Americans.

Frank emigrated to America in 1948, settling in New York City, where he was hired as a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar by the magazine’s legendary art director Alexey Brodovitch, who also recruited Lisette Model, Richard Avedon and mid-century-era style-setting couple Leslie Gill and Frances McLaughlin-Gill. Frank’s artistic style — and use of a 35mm Leica, an unconventional choice in the fashion world — proved not to be a fit, however, and he left the job after a few months. He went on to produce street photography around the city while working freelance jobs for the likes of Vogue, Life and other publications.

But it was leaving New York that would produce Frank’s most notable work. Throughout the 1950s, with the support of a Guggenheim Fellowship and guidance from Walker Evans, he embarked on a series of cross-country road trips, traversing nearly every state in the continental U.S. and producing a wealth of arresting photographs of its inhabitants. The black-and-white images pioneered what became known as a “snapshot aesthetic,” capturing a spontaneous moment. Subjects are often out of focus and rarely looking toward the camera, and rippled fabric or bent grasses often suggest movement and breeze.

After an initial publication in France, where the photographs appear alongside essays, The Americans was released in the U.S. in 1959 with a foreword by author Jack Kerouac, who espoused Frank’s ability to capture a uniquely American spirit.

“That crazy feeling in America,” Kerouac wrote, “when the sun is hot and music comes out of the jukebox or from a nearby funeral, that’s what Robert Frank has captured in tremendous photographs taken as he traveled on the road around practically forty-eight states in an old used car.”

Following the release of The Americans, Frank turned much of his attention to film. He would go on to produce a film version of Kerouac’s The Beat Generation and cofounded the New American Cinema Group in 1960. He died in 2019.

Find Robert Frank photography on 1stDibs.

to
3
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
3
1
2
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
3
1,323
1,133
850
771
2
1
Artist: Robert Frank
Photo Booth
By Robert Frank
Located in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA
Signed on the front of the print, lower right in black ink. Exhibited Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, 1985.
Category

20th Century Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Untitled, Amusement Park
By Robert Frank
Located in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA
Signed on the back of the print, lower right. Exhibited Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, 1985.
Category

20th Century Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Paris - Robert Frank (Black and White Photography)
By Robert Frank
Located in London, GB
Paris - Robert Frank (Black and White Photography) Signed and dated Silver gelatin print, printed 1970s 14 x 11 inches Frank’s photographs focused on elements of everyday life that ...
Category

1950s Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Related Items
Yéyé en position
By Malick Sidibe
Located in New York, NY
Malick Sidibé (1935-2016) was renowned for his celebrated black-and-white photographs of the youth culture in his hometown of Bamako, Mali.
Category

20th Century Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Film, Silver Gelatin

Untitled (Barefoot Woman on Bench with Cat)
By John Albok
Located in Denton, TX
John Albok Untitled (Barefoot Woman on Bench with Cat), 1938 Vintage gelatin silver print, 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in. Signed and dated in ink on mount margin by John Albok Born in Munkacs, H...
Category

1930s Modern Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Naples 1954, Street music
By Erich Andres
Located in Cologne, DE
This photograph, taken in Naples in 1954, depicts a group of street musicians performing in what appears to be an urban setting. The scene is lively and intimate, featuring a woman i...
Category

1950s Modern Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Naples 1954, Street music
Naples 1954, Street music
H 7.17 in W 4.65 in D 0.02 in
Silver Gelatin Photograph Hand Signed Photo Pablo Picasso Lucien Clergue
By Lucien Clergue
Located in Surfside, FL
Lucien Clergue (FRENCH, 1934 - 2014) Gelatin silver photographic print depicting Pablo Picasso titled "Mougins". Jacqueline et Pablo Picasso écoutant Manitas de Plata, circa 1968. Hand signed by the artist with hand written description. Titled and dated lower left. Mounted in a silver painted wooden frame with mat behind acrylic screen. Paper measures approx. 9" height x 11 1/2" width to sight. Framed measures approx. 14 3/4" height x 17 1/4" width. Lucien Clergue (French: 1934 – 2014) was a French photographer. He was Chairman of the Academy of Fine Arts, Paris for 2013. Lucien Clergue was born in Arles, France. At the age of 7 he began learning to play the violin, and after several years of study his teacher admitted that he had nothing more to teach him. Clergue was from a family of shopkeepers and could not afford to pursue further studies in a college or university school of music, such as a conservatory. In 1949, he learned the basics of photography. Four years later, at a corrida in Arles, he showed his photographs to Spanish painter Pablo Picasso who, though subdued, asked to see more of his work. Within a year and a half, young Clergue worked on his photography with the goal of sending more images to Picasso. During this period, he worked on a series of photographs of travelling entertainers, acrobats and harlequins, the Saltimbanques. He also worked on a series whose subject was carrion. On 4 November 1955 Lucien Clergue visited Picasso in Cannes, France. Their friendship lasted nearly 30 years until Picasso's death. Clergue's autobiographical book, Picasso My Friend, looks back on important moments of their relationship. In 1968, and with his friend Michel Tournier, Clergue founded the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival which is held annually in July in Arles. He exhibited his work at the festival during the years 1971–1973, 1975, 1979, 1982–1986, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1994, 2000, 2003 and 2007. Clergue also illustrated books, among them a book by writer Yves Navarre. Clergue took many photographs of the gypsies of southern France, and was instrumental in propelling the guitarist Manitas de Plata to fame. Clergue is perhaps most remembered and respected for his vintage black-and-white studies of light, shadow, and form, featuring sinuous nude female bodies, zebra stripes of light, dynamic sand dunes, and seascapes extracted from the coast of the Camargue. Clergue's photographs are in the collections of numerous well-known museums and private collectors. His vintage photographs have been exhibited in over 100 solo exhibitions worldwide, with noted exhibitions such as in 1961, at the Museum of Modern Art New York, the last exhibition organized by Edward Steichen with Lucien Clergue, Bill Brandt and Yasuhiro Ishimoto. Museums with large collections of his work include The Fogg Museum at Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His work, Fontaines du Grand Palais (Fountains of the Grand Palais), is in Museo cantonale d'arte [de] of Lugano. His photographs of Jean Cocteau are on permanent display at the Jean Cocteau Museum in Menton, France. In the U.S., an exhibition of the Cocteau photographs was premiered at Westwood Gallery, New York City. In 2007, the city of Arles honored Lucien Clergue and dedicated a retrospective collection of 360 of his photographs dating from 1953 to 2007. He also received the 2007 Lucie Award. He was named Knight of the Légion d'honneur in 2003 and elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Institute of France on 31 May 2006, at the same time as a new section dedicated to photography was created. Clergue was the first photographer to enter the Academy to a position devoted specifically to photography. He was Chairman of the Academy of Fine Arts for 2013. Lucien Clergue was married to the art curator Yolande Clergue, founder of The Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles. He was the father of two daughters: Anne Clergue, a curator of contemporary art who has worked at Leo Castelli Gallery, and Olivia Clergue, a handbag fashion designer whose godfather was Pablo Picasso. Pablo Picasso (1881 –1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramic artist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. Regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian air forces during the Spanish Civil War. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the slightly older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art. In 1897, his realism began to show a Symbolist influence, for example, in a series of landscape...
Category

20th Century Modern Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Anthony Perkins, Silver Gelatin Print
By Jack Robinson
Located in Memphis, TN
Anthony Perkins was the son of the distinguished Broadway actor Osgood Perkins. He won an Academy Award nomination in just his second film, Friendly Persuasion (1956). In 1960, he appeared as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Psycho, and from then on, Perkins was strongly identified with that one role. When photographed by Jack Robinson on May 21, 1968, Perkins had just made Pretty Poison playing a mentally disturbed man opposite Tuesday Weld. He was married to the photographer Berry Berenson...
Category

1960s Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Silver Gelatin, Photographic Film

Slim Aarons Official Estate Print - Dinner Jazz
By Slim Aarons
Located in London, GB
Dinner Jazz American Jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong enjoys a plate of spaghetti in Rome. Slim Aarons silver gelatine fibre based print Print...
Category

1940s Modern Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White, Silver Gelatin

Elsa Peretti, Silver Gelatin Print
By Jack Robinson
Located in Memphis, TN
Elsa Peretti was born in Florence, studied interior design and was a language teacher and ski instructor before becoming a model. Peretti settled in New York in 1968 and began a care...
Category

1970s Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Silver Gelatin, Photographic Film

Naples, Fruitsstand, Street Photography, Black and White, 1950s, 17, 8 x 13, 1 cm
By Erich Andres
Located in Cologne, DE
Silver Gelatine Print by Erich Andres, ca 1950. Andres was born 1905 in Germany and passed away 1992. He started his career as a photographer in 1920. He was one of the first photogr...
Category

1950s Modern Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White, Silver Gelatin

Rome, Shop, Street Photography, Black and White, Italy, 1950s, 17, 7 x 12, 2 cm
By Erich Andres
Located in Cologne, DE
Silver Gelatine Print by Erich Andres, ca 1950. Andres was born 1905 in Germany and passed away 1992. He started his career as a photographer in 1920. He was one of the first photogr...
Category

1950s Modern Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White, Silver Gelatin

Dirk Bogarde, Silver Gelatin Print
By Jack Robinson
Located in Memphis, TN
Dirk Bogarde had, by the time Jack Robinson photographed him on January 17, 1968, survived a long period as the pin-up idol of postwar British cinema to b...
Category

1960s Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Film, Photographic Paper, Silver Gelatin

Rome, Shop, Street Photography, Black and White, Italy, 1950s, 17, 7 x 13, 1 cm
By Erich Andres
Located in Cologne, DE
Silver Gelatine Print by Erich Andres, ca 1950. Andres was born 1905 in Germany and passed away 1992. He started his career as a photographer in 1920. He was one of the first photogr...
Category

1950s Modern Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White, Silver Gelatin

Man, Market, Street Photography, Black and White, Italy 1950s, 17, 8 x 13 cm
By Erich Andres
Located in Cologne, DE
Silver Gelatine Print by Erich Andres, ca 1950. Andres was born 1905 in Germany and passed away 1992. He started his career as a photographer in 1920. He was one of the first photogr...
Category

1950s Modern Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White, Silver Gelatin

Previously Available Items
The Americans: 81 Contact Sheets
By Robert Frank
Located in New York, NY
The is the last remaining set available by any gallery. Danziger Gallery is pleased to present the legendary but rarely seen limited edition portfolio “ROBERT FRANK - THE AMERICAN...
Category

1950s Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Film, Lithograph, Silver Gelatin

Motorama, Los Angeles
By Robert Frank
Located in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA
Signed on the front of the print, lower right in black ink. Exhibited Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, 1985.
Category

20th Century Robert Frank Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Robert Frank black and white photography for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Robert Frank black and white photography available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Robert Frank in silver gelatin print and more. Not every interior allows for large Robert Frank black and white photography, so small editions measuring 11 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Murray Garrett, Bent Rej, and John Stryker. Robert Frank black and white photography prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $50,000 and tops out at $70,000, while the average work can sell for $55,743.

Recently Viewed

View All