Pioneering documentary photographer Robert Frank has died at the age of 94. "The Americans," his landmark book from 1958, was a hugely influential work of the Beat Generation, paving the way for a new photographic style.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/L. Lehmann
Advertisement
Renowned photographer Robert Frank has died at the age of 94 in Nova Scotia, Canada. His raw and expressive style was broadly revealed through his groundbreaking photographic book, The Americans.
The work, first published in France in 1958, and a year later in the US, portrayed different classes of American society. The photos featured everyday scenes taken during the photographer's road trips in the 1950s. It turned into a classic of the era. The US edition's introduction by Jack Kerouac, author of the Beat classic On the Road, contributed to its iconic success.
"Robert Frank has captured in the tremendous photographs taken as he traveled on the road around practically 48 states in an old used car (on Guggenheim Fellowship) and with the agility, mystery, genius, sadness, and strange secrecy of a shadow photographed scenes that have never been seen before on film," wrote Kerouac in the book. "That is why Frank will be considered one of the great photographers."
Best known for the book "The Americans," the giant of 20th-century photography has died at the age of 94. Here's a selection of Robert Frank's works — and why they were so unconventional.
Two women standing at the window during a 1955 parade in New Jersey: the darkened face of one of them is barely revealed and the other is completely hidden by a huge US flag. If it is easy for us to recognize the poetry in the composition of this photo today, it is thanks to Frank's pioneering work. Such shots were highly unusual when his book "The Americans" came out at the end of the 1950s.
Image: Robert Frank from The Americans, courtesy Pace/MacGill
Trolley, New Orleans, 1955
Story-telling snapshots: Frank's documentary approach focused on narrative. The passengers of this segregated trolley landed on the cover of Robert Frank's cult classic book, "The Americans," prefaced in the US edition by Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac. "The humor, the sadness, the EVERYTHING-ness and American-ness of these pictures!" wrote Kerouac in his introduction.
Image: Robert Frank from The Americans, courtesy Pace/MacGill
Paris, 1952
A long-planned exhibition at the C/O Berlin museum, titled "Robert Frank. Unseen," happens to open only three days after the photographer's death at the age of 94. The show combines contact sheets and photos he took during his travels around Europe and South America, as well as pictures from the US that weren't published in "The Americans." The exhibition can be seen until November 30, 2019.
Even before the publication of "The Americans," Edward Steichen, who served as the director of the department of photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art, had recognized Frank's talent and invited him to take part in a group exhibition, "51 American Photographers," at the prestigious museum. These earlier works are also shown at the C/O Berlin photography museum.
Another influential photographer in Frank's life was Walker Evans, renowned for his stark portrayal of the Great Depression in 1930s. He secured Frank's Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed him to travel around the US in 1955. During these travels, he took nearly 30,000 photos; 83 of them landed in "The Americans." Shots such as this one show how Evans was also an artistic influence for Frank.
Image: Robert Frank, courtesy Pace/MacGill
View from hotel window – Butte, Montana, 1956
Despite support from established names in photography, it was difficult to convince US publishers to take on this project. "The Americans" first came out in France in 1958; the US edition, by taboo-breaking publisher Grove Press, followed a year later. "Popular Photography" magazine criticized the "meaningless blur, grain, muddy exposures, drunken horizons, and general sloppiness" of the photos.
Image: Robert Frank from The Americans, courtesy Pace/MacGill
Charleston, South Carolina, 1955
Frank not only rejected classic photo techniques, he also approached a series of topics that weren't often found in illustrated magazines in the 1950s. The Swiss-born photographer was fascinated by the contrasts of his adoptive country. Questioning the concept of the "American Dream," he also explored racial relations, such as in this photo of a white baby with his African-American nanny.
Image: Robert Frank from The Americans, courtesy Pace/MacGill
San Francisco, 1956
"When 'The Americans' came out, America was on the rise. America had won the war. But he saw something different, things that were not as rosy a picture as 'Life' magazine
might have had it," Mark Lubell, director of the International Center of Photography, told press agency AP of the book that contributed to a shift in post-war culture: "Robert Frank changed the way we see."
Image: Robert Frank from The Americans, courtesy Pace/MacGill
Exile on Main St. album cover, 1972
After gaining international recognition for his photos, Frank shifted to underground filmmaking, with works including "Pull My Daisy" (1959) and a documentary about The Rolling Stones called "Cocksucker Blues" (1972). "He was an incredible artist whose unique style broke the mold," the band tweeted in tribute to Frank, whose work is also featured on the cover of their album "Exile on Main St."
Blind, Love, Faith, 1981
The death of his daughter in a plane crash and his son's schizophrenia diagnosis in the 1970s led Frank to return to photography and adopt a more introspective approach to his work, in which he'd create montages and write on his pictures. His work "shifted from being about what I saw to what I felt," he told "The Guardian." "I didn't believe in the beauty of a photograph anymore."
Image: Robert Frank, courtesy Pace/MacGill
New York City, 7 Bleecker Street, September, 1993
Even though he didn't make many public appearances, he did take on various assignments later in his career, including directing music videos for New Order and Patti Smith. Robert Frank died on September 9, at the age of 94 in Nova Scotia, Canada, where he lived. Kerouac's description of how Frank "sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film" applies to his varied oeuvre.
Image: Robert Frank, courtesy Pace/MacGill
11 images1 | 11
Deviating standards
Born in Switzerland on September 11, 1924, Robert Frank first worked as an assistant photographer in Zurich. He emigrated to the US in 1947 and started working in New York City for Harper's Bazaar as a fashion photographer.
From 1948 to 1953, he traveled to South America and back to Europe, developing his personal photographic approach.
A Guggenheim Fellowship allowed him to freely travel through the US in 1955, and 83 photos of 28,000 images he snapped during his trips were revealed in his book The Americans.
Robert Frank's 'The Americans'
He was initially criticized for deviating from established standards; his black-and-white shots featured "sloppy" compositions, and were considered too grainy and blurry to be published. Frank's gritty and expressive photos nevertheless introduced a style later known as the "snapshot aesthetic" that spread in the late 1960s, paving the way for photographers such as Diane Arbus.
Two decades after the book's publication, Gene Thornton described it in The New York Times as ranking "with Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America and Henry James' The American Scene as one of the definitive statements of what this country is about."
Or as Kerouac wrote in his introduction to the book, Frank "sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film."
Director of a shelved Rolling Stones documentary
Robert Frank also worked as a filmmaker, with works including the avant-garde film Pull My Daisy from 1959, written and narrated by Kerouac and starring Allen Ginsberg and other Beat artists.
He also collaborated with the Rolling Stones, creating photos for the cover of Exile on Main St. and directing the 1972 documentary Cocksucker Blues, which chronicles a tour supporting that album.
However, the cinema verite-style film was deemed too embarrassing and potentially incriminating, as it features drug use, nudity and group sex in backstage parties. A court ruling restricted its screenings to events where the director would be physically present. Another official film of the tour, Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones, directed by Rollin Binzer, replaced the shelved movie.
In 1971, the photographer and filmmaker moved to a remote area in Canada's Cape Breton, where he pursued his personal and introspective work on photography and cinema.
An exhibition titled "Robert Frank. Unseen" opens on September 12 at the C/O Berlin photography museum. It will be on show until November 11, 2019.
