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Frank, Robert
(1924-2019)Mabou Window

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Aus dem Katalog
Fotografie des 19. – 21. Jahrhunderts (Katalog nur online verfügbar)
Auktionsdatum 29.11.2025

Mabou Window. 1977. Gelatin silver print, printed 1988. 35,5 x 27,7 cm. Title "Mabou Window" scratched into the surface of the print. Signed, dated, and inscribed in black ink on the verso: “For Walter - till he visits the Window, NYC Aug. 9, 1988”; with an inventory number in pencil on the verso.

Taken from the window of his home in Mabou, Nova Scotia, Mabou Window (1977) exemplifies the quiet intensity and deeply personal tone that came to define Robert Frank’s later work. Following the critical success of The Americans, Frank turned away from traditional photojournalism to focus on his immediate surroundings, creating images charged with solitude, memory, and loss. The stark winter landscape, seen through a pane of old, distorted glass and partially framed by the window’s edge, evokes both physical and psychological distance. Often interpreted as a tribute to his daughter Andrea, who tragically died in a plane crash in 1974, the image resonates with themes of absence and mourning. This print, made in 1988, bears the scratched title on the surface and is dedicated in black ink on the verso: “For Walter - till he visits the Window, addressed to Swiss publisher and close friend Walter Keller. Variants of this print are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
– Edges bumped, some buckling along the print edges, slight tear to the top left corner, crease to the lower right corner, as well as light handling creases and minor retouching visible on the surface; otherwise a strong print in very good condition.

Provenance: From the artist to Walter Keller, publisher of Scalo, Private Collection, Zurich.

Lit.: Robert Frank. The Lines of my Hand. Zurich: Parkett / Der Alltag, 1989, n.p.