Anglo-French Fleet Entering the Black Sea from the Bosphorus – Crimean War, 1854

Combat de Kalafat au Village de Tzitzati – Crimean War Battle Scene Lithograph, circa 1854 This powerful 19th-century lithograph titled Combat de Kalafat au Village de Tzitzati (Cit...

Antique print titled 'Straits of Yenikale with the Bay and Town of Kertch. From the old Fortress of Yenikale'. This print originates from 'The Seat of the War in the East' by W. Simp...

Great set of 12 military prints. All related to the Crimean Wars. Lithographs in original colors after William Simpson. Published by P & D Colna...

Robert Frank Untitled from the Americans, 1958, Beats Culture, Black & White. Photogravure print, mid-century, France,wax tissue mounted on conservation matboard. Influenced by the work of Jakob Tuggener and Bill Brandt, as well as Walker Evans, Frank, a native of Switzerland, Frank was fascinated by documentary photography and the notion and image of "America." Frank secured a Guggenheim fellowship in 1955 to do something new and unconstrained by commercial diktats. "The Americans" was first published in 1958 in France, before its first run in the US in 1959. The photographs were shocking and notable for their distanced view of both high and low strata of American society, creating a complicated portrait of a period that was, then and now, considered to be a skeptical portrait of post-WWII American values but also deeply empathetic and profoundly evocative of ubiquitous loneliness. Frank found a tension in the gloss of American culture and wealth over race and class differences, which gave his photographs a clear contrast to those of most contemporary American photojournalists, as did his use of unusual focus, low lighting and cropping that deviated from accepted photographic techniques. Shortly before the book was published in France, Frank returned to the US (1957) and met Jack Kerouac on the sidewalk outside a party. They started chatting. Frank showed him some of his photographs. Kerouac immediately told Frank "Sure, I can write something about these pictures." Kerouac would write the introduction to the American edition of the book, published two years later. Sociologist Howard S...