Trolley, New Orleans
Artist: Robert Frank (American, born Switzerland, 1924 - 2019)
Date: 1958
Dimensions:
8 9/16 x 12 9/16 in. (21.7 x 31.9 cm)
Medium: gelatin silver print
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Purchased with funds given by an anonymous donor
Object number: 1978.18
Label Text:The photographic work that Robert Frank did before leaving Switzerland for the United States in 1947 has been described as “almost luxurious: graphically rich, poetically elliptical, half painterly in surface.” His best know and most original work, however, dates from the 1950s and is perhaps inspired by the very difficult challenges of a radically new culture and exposure to the Depression-era work of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange.
After receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955, Frank travelled across America, “seeing those faces, those people, the kind of hidden violence” that he captured in Trolley, New Orleans—a photograph that sums up Frank’s work. The strong, spare composition, organized in simple rectangles, containing figures and extraordinary patterns of reflections, elevates the ordinary scene through the force and penetration of Frank’s vision. His concern is not with traditional beauty, but rather with straightforward documentation of all aspects and classes of American society. The impartiality and honesty of his images—such as his revealing study of the trolley passengers—is often charged with social commentary. This aspect of his work and his seemingly off-hand compositions have been an important influence, linking Frank with many younger photographers, including Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand.
After receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955, Frank travelled across America, “seeing those faces, those people, the kind of hidden violence” that he captured in Trolley, New Orleans—a photograph that sums up Frank’s work. The strong, spare composition, organized in simple rectangles, containing figures and extraordinary patterns of reflections, elevates the ordinary scene through the force and penetration of Frank’s vision. His concern is not with traditional beauty, but rather with straightforward documentation of all aspects and classes of American society. The impartiality and honesty of his images—such as his revealing study of the trolley passengers—is often charged with social commentary. This aspect of his work and his seemingly off-hand compositions have been an important influence, linking Frank with many younger photographers, including Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand.
Not on view
In Collection(s)