Rare Book Monthly
One of the First Photographs of New York Sold at Auction
Segregated New Orleans trolley in 1955. Courtesy of Sotheby's.
While the New York photograph's price was impressive, the top figure at this auction went for a picture that runs along the border of art and history. It was a 1955 photograph of a New Orleans trolley by noted photographer Robert Frank. The people in the trolley stare out the windows, perhaps at the photographer, maybe something else. What makes this picture more than a work of art, but one of history, is the racial make-up of the riders. All of the whites are seated at the front of the trolley; the blacks are in the back. It is a stark reminder of a segregated America in the 1950s. The photo sold for $122,500.
