Final Book Design

Robert Frank

For this project I've decided to choose a photographer that is not on the list: Robert Frank. His photography changed the way America views the iconic images of the 50s and 60s.

Book Design Project: Artist Research

From The Outside Looking In

Robert Frank was a legendary photographer during his time.  His background, and personal experiences led him to reveal America from a new perspective never seen before. The raw images that this photographer took would later be the most iconic images of the American culture during the 1950s and 1960s.

            Robert Frank was born in Zurich Switzerland in 1924. He grew up under the World War II threat of Nazis. At the age of 22 he became a professional photographer, and eventually a fashion photographer for Harpers Bazaar.  Frank soon lost interest in the fashion work he was doing, and left it behind in 1948. He then moved to America to explore the possibilities of a 35mm camera. Frank was one of the most influential photographers of the mid-20^th century.

Frank possessed qualities that immediately set him apart from others. Being a native of Europe, he had a whole new perspective of the American culture.  He took the American culture that we saw as wholesome, and turned it into a reality check for most. Robert turned his camera the other direction and photographed what the Americans choose not to see.

Walker Evans, a known photographer of the depression, was a huge influence on Robert Frank. Evans wanted America to see the depressed and deprived during the depression Frank showed the same qualities in his work as well.  For example Frank’s From the American’s Parade, also revealed to the public the social crisis at hand.

Robert Frank is best known for his book titled The Americans. He spent 1955 and 1956 traveling the United States taking pictures of the American culture.  Frank’s earlier pictures of Europe reveal the rich life of Europeans. When he was ready to publish the pictures in his book, most people wouldn’t accept them. He had taken pictures of our culture that no one had chosen to see. In his photograph From the American’s Parade, he reveals a hidden, and almost speechless American. The way the flag is over the woman’s head reveals that Americans are mindless. This photograph is significant because of the way he chose to photograph these women in the shadows, as if they are in the shadows of the American culture.

Robert Frank collectively provided just what the American Society needed, to wake up. He chose to photograph what he saw in the American society was important. Frank was an outsider looking into a society that had been portrayed so well as glorious.  Instead he showed a need for a reality check for our culture. As a photographer he shaped the way that we view the 1950s and 1960s. The photographs revealed the history of our culture before America even new what hit them.