Fine Photographs Specialist Picks: Bonnie & Clyde and A Look at NYC From a Bygone Era

Aniston Eastes, Inventory Manager —
Lot 46: A Suite of 10 Photographs Detailing the Infamous Life and Death of Bonnie & Clyde

“You be Bonnie and I’ll be Clyde!” Petite blonde Bonnie Parker and clean-cut Clyde Barrow resemble a conventional 1930s western couple looking to get married, have children and buy a house with a picket fence and Oldsmobile in the driveway, but with the Great Depression raging around them, the young couple instead exchanged the mundane American experience for robbing banks and killing those unlucky enough to get in their way.  

Clyde started his life of crime early but knew he had to go straight when he met the love of his life, a 19-year-old waitress named Bonnie. By this time, Clyde had already been on law enforcement’s radar for small crimes, including petty theft and carjacking, so he thought it best to lay low and stay out of trouble for Bonnie. Unfortunately, the 20-year-old delinquent slipped up and landed in jail once again, but this time he’d found a partner in crime willing to aid in his escape. Bonnie helped smuggle a gun into the prison, which Clyde then used to flee with some other inmates. The passion burned even brighter for the couple after this, their love story becoming a fire raging, ready to engulf anyone in its path. Clyde ultimately ends up getting captured after his escape but is released on parole; this does nothing to deter the couple; instead, it feeds their hunger.  

After losing his job to police harassment, the couple joined other hardened criminals on a string of bank robberies and murderous encounters. This continued for about two years, law enforcement attempting to wrestle with the evasive couple, even showing up at Clyde’s brother’s home in Missouri and enacting an ambush that resulted in two dead officers and an unknown treasure trove of negatives that Bonnie and Clyde had left behind. These photographs would be highly desired and flooded into newspapers everywhere, only fueling the public’s intrigue about the couple. The gang proceeded to commit a handful of robberies, killing at least 12 people in the process throughout their two-year spree. Eventually the cat and mouse hunt for Bonnie and Clyde ended on May 23, 1934 with a posse of law enforcement officers from Texas and Louisiana finally catching up to the pair in their 1934 Ford Model B after a tip from a former betrayed Barrow gang member, under the guise that his father’s car had broken down. Bonnie and Clyde stopped to help, but soon enough, the posse surprised the couple, ending their spree but never their legacy, in a fatal shootout. In death, the two are together with the posse standing over them. Despite their horrible crimes and graphic ending, Bonnie and Clyde are still idolized today, and their “portraits” are highly desired. This set of 10 images, taken after their death, is very rare, particularly the photograph of the two embracing, lips locked and chained together for eternity.  

Bridget Fay, Cataloguer & Client Relations —
Lot 91 & Lot 119: New York Vernacular Lots