Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => Discussing Photographic Styles => Topic started by: fdisilvestro on September 10, 2019, 10:07:05 am

Title: Robert Frank - RIP
Post by: fdisilvestro on September 10, 2019, 10:07:05 am
The great Robert Frank passed away. Another legend leaves us.


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/arts/robert-frank-dead.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/arts/robert-frank-dead.html)
Title: Re: Robert Frank - RIP
Post by: RSL on September 10, 2019, 11:36:02 am
Thanks, Francisco. May he rest in peace. He really did seminal work.
Title: Re: Robert Frank - RIP
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on September 11, 2019, 07:53:34 am
IIRC the National Gallery of Art had a retrospective of 'The Americans' back in 2009.  It was really quite dramatic to see all the images hanging on a wall in one place.  Frank's vision was acute and his documentation of a troubled period will stand the test of time.
Title: Re: Robert Frank - RIP
Post by: petermfiore on September 11, 2019, 08:08:29 am
A hero and great vision is Robert Frank. His work will always keep him a part of our world.


Peter
Title: Re: Robert Frank - RIP
Post by: Rob C on September 11, 2019, 09:04:47 am
A lot of fame and a lot of personal pain.

Perhaps the outsider sees things the most clearly.

R.I.P.

Rob
Title: Re: Robert Frank - RIP
Post by: Rob C on December 05, 2019, 03:29:23 pm
On Robert Frank:

https://qz.com/quartzy/1706244/robert-franks-photographs-exposed-americas-despair/

https://www.thevanguard.ca/lifestyles/local-lifestyles/from-our-archives-photographer-robert-frank-seeker-of-light-350661/

Rob
Title: Re: Robert Frank - RIP
Post by: RSL on December 05, 2019, 03:57:04 pm
A pessimistic look at the U.S. in the fifties exposed by Frank. I was there. I was 28 when The Americans hit the street. Robert put his finger on a lot of things all of us knew about and many of us deplored, but the overall picture wasn't as dark as this essay makes it sound. Our armed forces had integrated, and there was a lot of push-back against the KKK and the things that had gone on in the South. Shortly before The Americans came out I spent several months in the Air University at Montgomery, Alabama. Every night when you came out there'd be KKK flyers under your windshield wipers. Down the road there was a "separate but equal" school for black kids where the boys were taught how to work in the fields and the girls were taught how to do housework. But it wasn't long after I finished the school that things began improving. I'll never know how much Frank's book influenced those changes, but I know it had an effect. With or without the book, things were improving, and all in all, even then, the United States probably was less bigoted than most of the world.