Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

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.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

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 credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link 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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.