Robert Frank

Robert Frank, born in 1924, Swiss-born photographer and filmmaker, whose book The Americans (1959) portrayed scenes of everyday life in the United States from the perspective of an outsider. Frank was born in Zürich, where he studied large-format still photography and worked as a photographer's apprentice and industrial photographer. He emigrated to the United States in 1947 and worked in New York City as a fashion and advertising photographer. In 1948 he made the first of his many independent photography trips. Frank's work in South America and Europe set the stage for his ground-breaking book on America; his photographs of people were direct, unsentimental, and revealing.

Frank received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955 and used the money to finance a two-year automobile tour of America. His photographs were published first in France in 1958 as Les Americains, and in the United States in 1959 as The Americans. The ironic, personal vision in the photographs challenged assumptions about how America was supposed to look. The book changed the way American photographers would look at their surroundings; its often bleak images portrayed boredom, depression, and despair as a part of everyday life and worthy of recording. The work also helped to establish the use of the 35mm camera as a tool for capturing moments, not just subjects. The Americans was a controversial portrait of America. Critics disapproved of Frank's dark vision and honesty.

In the 1960s Frank began working primarily in motion pictures and as a teacher of cinematography. His best-known film is Pull My Daisy (1958), based on a play by American author Jack Kerouac. In 1971 Frank returned to making photographs.