Robert Frank

Acquired from the photographer, 1978

Jack Kerouac and Robert Frank met by chance on a New York sidewalk in 1957. The two would have profound influence over each other's work. Frank collaborated with both Alfred Leslie and Kerouac to create the 1959 cult Beat Generation film ‘Pull My Daisy’ and Kerouac wrote the introduction for the 1959 publication of Frank's The Americans. 

In April of 1958, Frank and Kerouac embarked on a round-trip drive to Florida. The trip was undertaken for two reasons; Kerouac, who never obtained his driver’s license, needed a ride ‘to get my mother and cats and typewriter and big suitcase full of original manuscripts,’ according to his account of the trip in an essay titled "On the Road to Florida." Further, Frank and Kerouac had been given $100 by Life magazine (more than $1,000 today) for an assignment to document their travels to Florida and back. Frank drove the entire way, snapping images from the driver’s seat. “It’s pretty amazing to see a guy, while steering at the wheel, suddenly raise his little 300-dollar German camera with one hand and snap something that’s on the move in front of him, and through an unwashed windshield at that,” Kerouac remarked. “Later on, when developed, the unwashed streaks don’t harm the light, composition or detail of the picture at all, seem to enhance it.”