Robert Frank Dead at 94

[jmlynek]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/...tion=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

 

[Pieter12]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/arts/robert-frank-dead-americans-photography.html

 

[Kino]

“The kind of photography I did is gone. It’s old,” he told me without a trace of regret in 2004, when I visited him at his spartan apartment in Bleecker Street, New York, where a single bread roll and a mobile phone the size of a brick sat forlornly on the kitchen table. “There’s no point in it any more for me, and I get no satisfaction from trying to do it. There are too many pictures now. It’s overwhelming. A flood of images that passes by, and says, ‘why should we remember anything?’ There is too much to remember now, too much to take in.”

https://www.theguardian.com/artandd...frank-americans-photography-influence-shadows

 

[BrianShaw]

Very sad news...

 

[BrianShaw]

Very sad news...

 

[BSP]

Reaching for my copy of The Americans now to pay homage...

 

[pentaxuser]

Interesting shots and article. It's looking at his shots that helps me realise why people ask questions about how to get the kind of gritty/ grainy look of what they describe as the 40s/50s look

pentaxuser

 

[Peter Schrager]

Thank you Robert frank for your contributions to photography

 

[logan2z]

Terrible news.

 

[Trask]

The same fate awaits us all, but Mr. Frank can rest easy knowing his work will be long remembered and referenced. As an American, I appreciate him holding up a mirror to show us to ourselves.

 

[tomkatf]

Sad news... "The Americans" and "The Lines of My Hand" were very influential to me as a young photographer. RIP Mr. Frank

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

His photos didn't include all Americans. The book should have been called Some Americans or Americans I've Met, not The Americans.

 

[Pieter12]

His photos didn't include all Americans. The book should have been called Some Americans or Americans I've Met, not The Americans.

His book was called whatever he and his publisher decided to call it. "The" is not "all." Nothing could be "all."

 

[awty]

He did great work, always interesting having the perspective of a foreigner, you often see thing slightly different..

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

His book was called whatever he and his publisher decided to call it. "The" is not "all." Nothing could be "all."

"The" is a definitive article unlike "a" or "an" which are indefinite articles. A definite article expresses something unique, something that has only one meaning. The name of "the" president is....As opposed to..The name of "an" American President is.... The title of the book using "The" takes on an image that he is describing Americans and all of America, and this is it. There are many Americans who don;t appear in his book. He only described some of them in a prejudicial view of who we are. The book, or should I say the title, is a conceit and misrepresents who Americans are.

 

[Sirius Glass]

RIP​

 

[Renato Tonelli]

Goodbye Frank - and thank you.

 

[Louis Nargi]

very sad news indeed

 

[petrk]

"The" is a definitive article unlike "a" or "an" which are indefinite articles. A definite article expresses something unique, something that has only one meaning. The name of "the" president is....As opposed to..The name of "an" American President is.... The title of the book using "The" takes on an image that he is describing Americans and all of America, and this is it. There are many Americans who don;t appear in his book. He only described some of them in a prejudicial view of who we are. The book, or should I say the title, is a conceit and misrepresents who Americans are.

As "a" European I understand the title this way: "The Americans, we are talking about in Paris, and elswhere in Europe, knowing nearly nothing about them, so they are sort of mysterious". Frank provided his take.

I like the "the".

But I understand your point. You are right.

Cheers Petr

Edit: I am happy I could see his photos and the French and American versions of the book in exhibition at Albertina, Vienna. Frank himself, or publisher, should be aware of difficulties in perception of the book, because the American version had an extensive texts included. There were both versions on display. Cannot recall what were notes to this display saying about it, but it was really strange to see them side by side.

 

[Pieter12]

As "an" European I understand the title this way: "The Americans, we are talking about in Paris, and elswhere in Europe, knowing nearly nothing about them, so they are sort of mysterious". Frank provided his take.

I like the "the".

But I understand your point. You are right.

Cheers Petr

Edit: I am happy I could see his photos and the French and American versions of the book in exhibition at Albertina, Viena. Frank himself, or publisher, should be aware of difficulties in perception of the book, because the American version had an extensive texts included. There were both versions on display. Cannot recall what were notes to this display saying about it, but it was really strange to see them side by side.

I think you have them reversed. The French edition had essays, the U.S. version had only an introduction by Kerouac.

 

[Kino]

I really enjoyed his work, because he shot what was in front of him and showed that moment glimpsed between the poses and staged smiles that the US always wants to project to the World.

He caught the hostility, hypocrisy and discrimination that "USA-Forever" type cheerleaders vehemently deny exist in this Country; it pisses them off to no end that a "foreigner" unmasked some of the dirty laundry going on behind the Park Avenue whitewash.

RIP Mr. Frank...

 

[Patrick Robert James]

If you are a fan of The Americans get the comprehensive version of the book. The last time it was printed about a decade ago they released three versions I think it was. One was called the expanded edition and it is massive. It has all the contact sheets and a bunch of essays and alternative images and such. Huge book. I think it is called Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans: Expanded Edition

 

[petrk]

I think you have them reversed. The French edition had essays, the U.S. version had only an introduction by Kerouac.

Thank you for correcting me, Pieter!

 

[Hilo]

"The" is a definitive article unlike "a" or "an" which are indefinite articles. A definite article expresses something unique, something that has only one meaning. The name of "the" president is....As opposed to..The name of "an" American President is.... The title of the book using "The" takes on an image that he is describing Americans and all of America, and this is it. There are many Americans who don;t appear in his book. He only described some of them in a prejudicial view of who we are. The book, or should I say the title, is a conceit and misrepresents who Americans are.

First there was The Europeans, Cartier Bresson in 1955, then The Americans, Robert Frank in 1959, then Die Deutschen, René Burri in 1962. Beautiful books with strong photography.

Of course there were also the countless books about parts of the world that were the typical tourist publications, with titles like Magic Bahia . . . very representative.

For me it is all about those great books, the Frank, the Cartier Bresson, the Burri and many others. Books that lifted photography up and changed the ways of looking at things, people, ourselves.

These books are now part of what photography at its best could do. They are that for many reasons, one being that the photographers were not trying to be objective. Instead they were works made from the heart. When it comes to works made from the heart, you forget about things that "should be".

Thank you Robert Frank, for giving yourself, always.

 

[jtk]

It's good to remember Jack Kerouac, a contemporary who saw similar things, lived a very similar life