Robert Frank and his Frankly American Photographs

The Zurich-born Swiss Jewish photographer Robert Frank, 84, is being celebrated in two New York exhibits, Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans which runs from September 22 to January 3, 2010 at the Metropolitan Museum as well as a smaller show at the Robert Mann Gallery in Chelsea.
Marking the 50th anniversary of the publication of “The Americans” (1959), Frank’s influential book of photographs, the Met show, which was previously seen at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, and the San Francisco Museum, is the occasion for a monumental, meticulously researched catalogue, “Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans – Expanded Edition” ( National Gallery/Steidl Editions). The catalogue notes that wartime Zurich had “several Hitler youth and pro-Nazi groups” and Frank is quoted that as he grew up there, antisemitism was “an organic part of life.” Even now Frank still vividly recalls hearing Hitler on the radio, “threatening — cursing the Jews. It’s forever in your mind — like a smell, the voice of that man – of Göring, of Goebbels.”
When Frank arrived in New York after the war, he was able to empathize with minority communities in his photos, whether Allen Ginsberg and his Beat associates, a trio of effeminate Hispanic men with plucked eyebrows, snapped in New York in 1955, or one of the rare explicitly Jewish images in “Looking In,” “Yom Kippur – East River, New York City, 1954.” In this somber back view of a group of religious Jews, extra vivacity is added by the profile of a little boy wearing a kippah, gazing dewy-eyed at the landscape.
As explained in an NPR interview in February, Frank’s The Americans was originally seen as coarse and gloomy; it is now revered as a classic. The new catalogue makes the intriguing case that American Jewish colleagues like the still-underrated photographer Louis Faurer influenced Frank to abandon Swiss-style technical perfection in photography and aim instead for gritty emotionality.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.