Robert Frank

signed in ink in the margin, numerical notations in pencil on the reverse, framed, 1955, printed later

Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, 1998

The Americans, no. 66

Sarah Greenough, Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans, pp. 291 and 478, and Contact no. 66

U. S. Camera [Annual] 1958, p. 109

LIFE Library of Photography: Documentary Photography, p. 177

Alfred Appel, Jr., Signs of Life, p. 31

Keith F. Davis, An American Century of Photography, from Dry-Plate to Digital: The Hallmark Photographic Collection, p. 275

Peter Galassi, Walker Evans & Company, pl. 264

Cruel and Tender: The Real in the Twentieth-Century Photograph (Tate Modern), p. 111

David Campany, The Open Road: Photography & The American Road Trip, p. 47

This print, on double-weight Agfa paper with a semi-glossy surface, is in generally excellent condition. In raking light, 3 small crescent-shaped handling creases are visible in the lower portion of the image. There is a tiny deposit (possibly original retouching) in the upper right quadrant. A thin, linear impression (consistent with graphite lines on the reverse) runs along the upper and lower margins, parallel to the edges; this does not affect the image in any way, and is visible only in raking light. There are a few scattered deposits of indeterminate nature in the margins, and some soiling in the upper margin. The margin corners are bumped, the upper right margin corner is sharply creased, and the top paper-ply is folded back at the tip of the lower right margin corner. On the reverse are linear graphite marks that run parallel to the edges, and some minor soiling. 'RF.A.0I.066' is written in an unidentified hand in pencil.
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Through deft camera work and careful framing, Frank’s photograph of the premiere of Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm punctures the artifice of Hollywood.  The vacant face of the starlet in the foreground is diffuse, in stark contrast to the faces of the surrounding fans which are rendered with great clarity.  The inclusion of extraneous neon advertisements has the effect of diminishing the glamour of the occasion.  Frank photographed this image horizontally, and cropped it in the darkroom to a vertical orientation.  This tightening of the picture frame increases the tension in the photograph, and magnifies the distance between the starlet and her admirers.   It is believed that only two other prints of this image have been offered at auction.