Revisiting Robert Frank's The Americans, part 1 by Carol Wallwork First published online Feb. 12, 2009

                                                                   Butte Montana 1956 by Robert Frank

In 1958 Elvis Presley was beginning his reign;  Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner were receiving Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes; The Honeymooner’s and Gunsmoke were the most watched t.v. shows, and Life and Look magazines were the major formats for photography.  Swiss photographer Robert Frank’s book, The Americans, published in the U.S. in 1958, slammed headlong into this cultural comfort zone and we haven’t been the same since. 

The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC is celebrating the 50th anniversary of publication of Frank’s book with the exhibit, Looking in: Robert Frank’s The Americans, January 18-April 26, 2009, traveling to San Francisco, May 16-August 23, and New York City, September 22 -December 27, 2009.

                                                                              photo by W. Eugene Smith

One of the pinnacles of early post World War II documentary photography was W. Eugene Smith’s photo essay, The Country Doctor  published in Life Magazine 1948, documenting the daily life of an heroic Colorado physician as he cares for his multi-cultural community of hard scrabble farmers.

Photo by Bill Beall

The 1958 Pulitzer Prize photograph is of a young boy looking up, with a face as sweet as any on celluloid, into the ideal demeanor of a tall kindly policeman, at a Chinatown parade, reflecting earthy American goodness.   It was taken by Bill Beall, for the Washington (DC) Daily News,  and is the most endearing of any of the Pulitzer prize winning photographs in the history of the awards, from 1942 to the present.

You come away from such photojournalism feeling good about the world, hopeful, maybe even a little smug at being part of such a fine branch of humanity.  You feel none of those emotions viewing The Americans.  Frank never lets us forget the more venial side of America and the acute shortcomings of a “civilization born here and spreading elsewhere.” 

Like other foreign observers of America before him--such as Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America (1835-40) and Egyptian Sayyid Qutb in his Muslim Brotherhood manifesto, Milestones -- Frank’s otherness gave him a divergent perspective of American life.  The ‘outsider’ can see the good, the bad, a mirror reflection of himself or if truly gifted, the all.

               

                                            Bar, New York City 1955 by Robert Frank

Frank’s view of Americans was for the most part from the ‘bad school.’  He views us as odiously flat and wane, with none of the qualities that mark people of a noble civilization.  Frank’s impressions of America, circa 1955-58, seem inculcated with the equally severe view of humanity shared by Frenchman John Calvin (1509-1564) who for a time lived in Frank's home country of Switzerland. 

Reformed theologian Calvin’s interpretation of Scripture introduced such ideas as ‘total depravity’ and ‘limited atonement’ into the lexicon of Christian exegesis.  I can see those very qualities in Frank’s mid-20th century photographs of my fellow Americans. His subjects are often bawdy and shallow, with a commercial lust for canned music, Huey Long-style politicians and a weak faith.  Frank grabs them, shaping their image, with a stern, unforgiving eye.

I’m not preternaturally disposed to happy photographs.  My favorite photographers--Henri Cartier-Bresson, W. Eugene Smith, Andre Kertesz, for quick example,--have captured on film breathtaking atrocities but their genius is they’ve also captured human goodness, delight, humor and charm, creating what my English major classes taught me is a round vision of humanity.

                                  Funeral, St. Helena, South Carolina 1955 by Robert Frank

Where Frank’s outsider status and character did succeeded was in his images of black people and the issue of racism.  Many of these photographs convey an elegance and dignity of black culture that was largely ignored or invisible by much white society at that time.

                                                  Trolley, New Orleans 1955 by Robert Frank

                                                                                                         London street 1951  by Robert Frank

Background

It’s perennially annoying that most successful photographers’ early work is their best.  Much of Frank’s is no exception.  There’s more light and symbolism, less negativity.  There’s even real joy.  And more Life with a capital L even in scenes of death.

Robert Frank was born into a middle class family in Zurich, Switzerland in 1924.  His coming of age was surrounded by the rest of the world collapsing.  His German father immigrated to Zurich after training as an interior designer.  He imported radios from Sweden, maintaining a comfortable middle class lifestyle for his family, despite the severe challenges during the 1930s and the war years.  His father thought the spoken Swiss-German dialect “inhuman” and looked down on the Swiss.  Young Robert was affected by these difficult cultural, social and civic issues. 

After high school he knew he did not want to be involved with his father’s business, and material comfort was not important to him, unlike his father.  But he did have his father’s ambition to make a mark in the world.  Frank became an apprentice to a Zurich photographer.  He went on to get a thorough grounding in all aspects of photography, including advertising, publishing and cinema.

After the war Frank knew he didn’t want to stay in Switzerland, a place he regarded as too predictable and narrow.  He first went to Paris, then America.

Part 2:  Traveling around Europe, the Americas; Guggenheim Fellowship, and beyond...

                                                        New Mexico 1958 photo by Robert Frank

Bibliography:
Aperture Master’s of Photography Henri Cartier-Bresson (Aperture Foundation, New York 1976)

Bourcier, Noel,  Andre Kertesz ( Phaidon Press Ltd., London 2001)

Buell, Hal, Moments The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photographs (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers New York 1999)

de Tocqueville, Alexis Democracy in America (1835)

Frank, Robert, The Americans (SCALO Publishers New York-Zurich-Berlin 1958)

Greenough, Sarah,  Looking In  Robert Frank’s The Americans (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC 2009)

Greenough, Sarah & Brookman, Philip, Robert Frank Moving Out (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC 1994)

Life Magazine, The Country Doctor (Time, Inc., New York 1948)

Wright, Lawrence, The Looming Tower  (Alfred A. Knopf New York, 2006)