Robert Frank

Acquired from the photographer, 1978

Philip Brookman and Vicente Todolí, Robert Frank: Storylines (London: Tate Modern, 2004), p. 117

Following his return to New York after criss-crossing the United States during his Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955-56, Robert Frank embarked on several new bodies of work.  In 1958, he visited New York’s Coney Island on the July 4th holiday. The haunting, mysterious images he produced that day are unlike any others he had created.  At Coney Island, Frank photographed almost exclusively at dusk and nighttime, producing low contrast images that he would later sometimes print without removing dust or debris from the negative, the effect heightening the gritty appearance of the images. Revelers are shown parading down darkened streets or, at the end of the night’s festivities, sleeping on a beach strewn with trash and clothing, huddled alone or in pairs, disengaged from the teeming crowds. The atmosphere is acutely cinematic, a harbinger of Frank’s forthcoming deviation from still photography to filmmaking.