NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s New York auction Robert Frank: The Americans, The Ruth and Jake Bloom Collection concluded last night with the strong total of $3,739,375, and with 89.6% of lots sold. Leading the auction was 'Hoboken' (Parade), an image taken at the city’s centennial in March 1955, which sold well above its estimate for $237,500 (est. $120/180,000, above). Other highlights of the sale included Frank’s iconic image, Charleston, S. C., which sold for $162,500 — double its high estimate of $80,000 — and 'New Orleans' (Trolley), which achieved $237,500 (estimate $200/300,000).

Christopher Mahoney, Head of Sotheby’s Photographs Department, said: “The strong results of tonight’s sale illustrated the market’s enduring enthusiasm for Robert Frank’s pivotal works. The Americans remains one of the most influential books of photography ever published, and its nuanced subject matter is as relevant today as when it was created half a century ago. We saw bidders competing intensely throughout the sale, driving many lots to prices well above their estimates.”

The Collection:
In 1955, the Swiss-born Robert Frank earned a Guggenheim Fellowship that allowed him to embark upon a series of photographic trips throughout America. Frank produced thousands of images on these trips, which he carefully and meticulously edited into the selection of 83 images that were first published as Les Américains in France in 1958, and as The Americans in this country in 1959.

California-based collectors Ruth and Jake Bloom assembled this extraordinary group of iconic photographs over more than two decades, collecting 77 of the 83 pictures reproduced in the book. This seminal series of images, so compelling on the printed page, gains a new resonance when seen as photographic prints. The sale represented the first time such an extensive collection of photographs from The Americans has ever appeared at public auction.