Robert Frank

Born in Zurich, Switzerland in November of 1924, Robert Frank would become one of the most influential photographers post World War II and a significant figure in American photography. During World War II, his family stayed in Switzerland, enjoying safety from the Nazis. Frank trained under a few photographers until 1946 when he published his first book, 40 Fotos. A year later, Frank moved to the United States where he worked for Harper’s Bazaar before later travelling to South America and Europe to take photos there. Returning to the US in 1950 he published another book of photographs that primarily consisted of photos shot in Peru. He also met fellow photographer Edward Steichen, joined the 51 American Photographers exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, and married artist Mary Lockspeiser, having two children named Andrea and Pablo. Growing disillusioned with American overemphasis on financial gain and the control editors would assume over the use of his photos, Frank briefly moved his family to Paris and continued to travel, returning to New York in 1953 where he would work as a freelance photographer for various American magazines such as Vogue and Fortune.

With the help of Walker Evans, Frank would receive a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and travel the US, photographing Americans from all walks of life and taking a total of 28,000 shots that broke many conventions of photography. Getting arrested once and frequently harassed by the police in southern cities, Frank would return to New York in 1957 and combine 83 of his photos with the writing of the beat movement’s Jack Kerouac to publish the book The Americans in 1959, which would later be hailed as one of the most important pieces of photographic literature despite being critically panned when it was first published in the US. From then on, Frank continued to take photos while experimenting with filmmaking.