Robert Frank b. 1924

signed and inscribed 'with best wishes for Sedat' by the photographer in ink in the margin, credited, titled, dated, and annotated by Grace Mayer in pencil and with a letterpress Museum of Modern Art exhibition information label and 2 Museum of Modern Art Publicity Department stamps on the reverse, 1958, printed no later than 1962

Acquired by the present owner from the photographer, 1967

Another print of this image:

Susan Kismaric, American Children: Photographs from the collects ion of The Museum of Modern Art (The Museum of Modern Art, 1980, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 43

The photographs offered here and in the following lot come from the collects ion of the filmmaker and photographer Sedat Pakay.  Pakay studied with Walker Evans at Yale, and later directed and produced the PBS documentaries Walker Evans/America (2000) and Josef and Anni Albers: Art is Everywhere (2005).  Walker Evans introduced Pakay to Robert and Mary Frank in 1967.

These photographs were loaned to the Museum of Modern Art by Frank for use in conjunction with the 1962 exhibition, Photographs by Harry Callahan and Robert Frank.  Curated by Edward Steichen, the exhibition gave Frank his fourth showing at the Museum.  The show featured 81 of Frank's photographs, and for the first t.mes , screened one of his films.  Grace Mayer, whose handwriting is on the reverse of both prints, was Steichen's personal assistant at the t.mes of the exhibition, and went on to become a Curator of Photography at MoMA, and later the Curator of the Edward Steichen Archive.