I saw it I suppose very shortly after it was published, when I was still working as a photographer myself, and it was, frankly, shocking. I sensed the power in it, and the authority about it but there was much about it that I didn’t like… The Americans was received with mixed critical reaction. Not […]
‘”There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment” – Robert Frank REVIEW: Robert Frank – Valencia 1952 (2012) By Fanny Landstrom, ASX UK, April 2013 In 1952, the Swiss born photographer Robert Frank leaves his job and his then current habitat New York to travel with his family […]
Director Gerald Fox’s documentary Leaving Home Coming Home: A Portrait of Robert Frank features intimate interviews with the filmmaker and photographer. The artist discusses his feelings about how his adopted hometown of New York City has changed over the course of his 50 years living there. The director showcases Frank’s work, including clips of some […]
“It was logical for me to get off doing still photography after becoming a success at it. I think it would just become a repeat—I would repeat myself.” An interview with Robert Frank, from one of ten symposiums at Wellesley College 1977 called “Photography within the Humanities”. Robert Frank: I’m just trying to, as they say, […]
With these photographs, I have attempted to show a cross-section of the American population. My effort was to express it simply and without confusion. By Robert Frank, U.S. Camera Annual, p. 115, 1958 I am grateful to the Guggenheim Foundation for their confidence and the provisions they made for me to work freely in my […]
Sick of Goodby’s, Mabou, 1978, Robert Frank Paint dripping from a mirror like blood. I’m sick of goodbyes. By Lou Reed, originally published in Tate Magazine, Issue 2, Autumn, 2004 I was looking at Robert Frank’s photograph Sick of Goodby’s in his book The Lines of My Hand. Moments before I had been […]
Robert Frank in ‘Home Improvements’ Interview with photographer Robert Frank, Film Comment, August 1987 By Marlaine Glicksman “I’d like to make a film which would mingle the private aspects of my life with my work, which is public by definition… how the two poles of this dichotomy join, interlace, are at variance , and fight […]
An Exclusive Interview with Robert Frank, Robert Frank’s Studio, New York, July 22, 2007
Streetwise builds on Swiss photographer Robert Frank’s snapshot aesthetic, which gained attention following the release of his groundbreaking book, The Americans in 1959. Frank’s focus on a more personal documentary style influenced a new generation of photographers, including legendaries such as Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Jerry Berndt, Ruth-Marion Baruch, Garry Winogrand, Bruce Davidson, Danny Lyon […]
Photograph by Hugh Edwards Originally published in DoubleTake Magazine, Summer 1996 May 23, 1960 Mr. Robert Frank, 34 Third Avenue, New York City, New York. Dear Mr. Frank: It seems so long since I was in New York and talked with you on the telephone that I am afraid you have forgotten the conversations […]
from ‘The Americans’ @ Robert Frank Frank’s personality, described by Joyce Johnson as a blend of “European dourness and pessimistic wit,” certainly helped to focus his photographic vision. By George Cotkin, Professor, Postwar United States Intellectual and Cultural History, California Polytechnic State University Few analysts have captured the sadness, tensions, ironies and possibilities […]