PHOTOGRAPHY: Frank perspective

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By Deborah K. Dietsch

In the mid-1950s, photographer Robert Frank captured an unsentimental picture of America that still resonates today. He spent two years crisscrossing the country to chronicle ordinary people and discovered a population separated by racism, social isolation, political manipulation and rampant consumerism - divisions still ingrained in the culture.

Mr. Frank assembled his black-and-white photos into a portfolio that was published by Grove Press in 1959 and simply called "The Americans." The book only sold about 1,100 copies and suffered harsh reviews. Its images of a segregated streetcar, desolate cemeteries and rundown bars were seen as a punch to the smiling face of the happy, prosperous nation.

That all changed when younger photographers rediscovered the book in the 1960s and began copying Mr. Frank's raw, off-kilter style. His influence came to shape both art and commercial photography (Mr. Frank's best-known work may be the album cover of the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street").

Today, the unsettling, gritty scenes of "The Americans" still look fresh, arrayed in a timely exhibition at the National Gallery of Art celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication.

"Looking In: Robert Frank's 'The Americans'" reveals as much about Mr. Frank's creative process as his seminal book. His collected images may appear casual, but they involved rigorous editing and cropping. The photographer narrowed down the more than 27,000 frames taken over two years to a mere 83 for the book.

Organized by photography curator Sarah Greenough, "Looking In" exposes his selection methods through contact sheets, working arrangements of images and mock-ups of the book. It shows how Mr. Frank originally organized his photos into themes - race, religion, politics, cars, landscape - by tacking them to the walls.

A grouping of such prints is as interesting for those images left out, including the portrait of a young Robert Kennedy, as those that were ultimately chosen.

Mr. Frank's interest in portraying people in everyday settings developed earlier in his career. The exhibit includes photos from 1941 to 1952 to show how he closely observed Welsh miners and London bankers in scenes as intimate as "The Americans."

Born in Zurich, Mr. Frank took up photography as a teenager and absorbed the modern style prevalent in Europe. When Switzerland began feeling "too closed, too small," the young artist moved to New York in 1947.

A job shooting fashion models for Harper's Bazaar was soon jettisoned for travel in South America and Europe - and three more books. "Peru" (1949) recorded his encounters with native cultures; "Mary's Book" presented Parisian views in a love letter to his wife; and "Black White and Things" (1952) combined dark city streets with misty landscapes from his various trips.