The America of Robert Frank



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Danziger Gallery presents an exhibition devoted to Robert Frank American photographs, his most famous work and probably the most important. The exhibition will include 40 photographs – 15 of Frank's flagship book, "The Americans" (celebrating the 60th anniversary of his American publication), and 25 unpublished works from Frank's trip at the time.

Born in Zurich in 1924, Frank began his career in photography in the mid-1940s before emigrating to America in 1947. As an immigrant, Frank was fascinated by America and, after his first trips to the country, he had applied for a Guggenheim Scholarship to finance longer and deeper travel throughout the country.

In his proposal to the Guggenheim Foundation, Frank wrote: "Photographing America is a big order – read literally, the expression would be nonsense". The "total production" of such a project, he added, would be "voluminous." Surprising as the proposal was, it was accepted and Frank embarked on a two-year trip to during which he made 28,000 photographs.

Eighty-three of these images were subsequently published in the book "The Americans", widely recognized as one of the greatest photographic works ever published.

What Frank brought to the medium was a quality of improvisation that saw the world in a different but more truthful way than the generally perceived visual clichés of his time. While the often dark and idiosyncratic nature of his vision shocked many people, this opened the way for much of what followed in photography.

Sarah Greenough, Senior Curator of Photography at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, said, "Frank has revealed a racist people, poorly served by their politicians, and increasingly numb to the growing consumer culture. . But it is also important to point out that he has discovered new areas of beauty in these simple and neglected corners of American life, whether in dinners or on the street. He has come up with a whole new subject that we now define as icons: cars, jukeboxes, and even the road. All of these things, associated with his style – apparently seemingly intuitive, immediate and offbeat – were radically new at the time. "

As with any photo editing process, many beautiful photographs have been left behind by "The Americans", but rather than being forgotten, Frank has chosen to print these images in the same 11 x 14 format. inches than that included in the book. It was not planned to publish a second volume, but the quality of the unpublished images that we will be showing clearly shows that the quality would hardly have diminished.

About impressions

At the end of the 70s, Franck turned away from photography and turned to cinema to finance his life and his film. In 1978, he sells his archives as well as prints made to complete the transaction. The prints on display here are all from this sale. The largest collection of this important figure in the history of photography. These are vintage prints (printed at about the same time as the photos) or at the latest in 1978 by Sid Kaplan, who made most prints for three decades.

Robert Frank's America

February 9 – March 16, 2019.

Danziger On Madison

980 Madison Avenue

New York NY 10075

www.danzigergallery.com

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