Robert Frank

   For over fifty years, Robert Frank is one of the photographers the more influential in the way he has broken the rules of photography and cinema, challenging the boundaries between fixe images and moving images. Born in Zurich, Frank starts from 1949 to take pictures that reflects his pursuit of artistic freedom and renewal of the medium's expressive potential. He travels in many countries in South America and Europe. Several of his series are exhibited: Peru (A949); London (1951-1952), offering a rare and attractive look on the endangered city aspect, Wales 51953) is devoted to the life of a miner and his family struggling against difficult living conditions. In 1954, Robert Frank begins a journey across the United States thanks to a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation. The book The Americans, published for the occasion, first in France and then in United States in 1959, had radically changed the language of the narrative photographic and upset  the notion of "good image". Among the most famous series: Chicago 5A959), made during the congressional elections, or Detroit (1955), showing the daily life of workers on the assembly lines of Ford factories. The images of The Americans, showing the psychological complexity of relationships between  individuals (including racism in southern states), work as metaphors for the country's situation at that moment.

   With the success, Frank decides in 1958 to partly give up photography and to devote himself to cinema. Although, according to the artist himself, this experience will be much less successful. In 1996, Frank receives the Hasselblad Award for his contribution to the development of photography. He has managed to impose tone and style that will mark the next generation

(photograph from The Americans)


Reading and viewing: 

Pace/Macgill Gallery : http://www.pacemacgill.com/robertfrank.html

NPR : http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100688154

The New Yorker : http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/14/090914fa_fact_lane

The Americans by Robert Frank 

Black, White, and things by Robert Frank