I discovered, while looking up Jessica Lange’s photography credentials on the Aperture website for my post about her show at the George Eastman House (here), that Philip Gefter —
a photo editor I used to work with at The New York Times — has a new book out called Photography After Frank. It was published by Aperture last month.
I reconnected — he, too, has left the Times — and now I have a copy of the book.
Philip also wrote about photography for the Times, and you’ll find many of those essays as well as new material in the book. Frank’s 1959 book The Americans — described by the National Gallery of Art for its recent exhibit Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans — “looked beneath the surface of American life to reveal a profound sense of alienation, angst, and loneliness” and was a turning point in photography. To refresh us on why, Philip writes:
Frank’s pictures reflect the stream-of-consciousness art-making of the period, and his attempt to capture the experience of an authentic moment in visual terms established a departure from the traditional photographic imagery that preceded him. The immediacy, sponaneity, and compositional anarchy in his picture frame changed expectations about the photograph.
From there, Philip divides his writings into themes, creating sections on The Document, The Staged Document, Photojournalism, The Portrait, The Collection and The Marketplace.
He analyzes and connects the photography of contemporary artists like Stephen Shore, Nan Goldin, Andreas
Gursky and Katy Grannan to Frank. He also writes about collectors like Sam Wagstaff, Richard Avedon (yes!) and the Getty, and gallerists like Peter MacGill and Janet Borden.
I haven’t read the whole book yet: the essays can be dipped into in order or not, whenever, without losing your train of thought. If you’re a close reader of the Times, you may remember some of this material. My one complaint is the dearth of photos: yes, there are plates, but not enough for me, and they are small. I chalk it up to the economic environment, but I’m just guessing.
In any case, Photography After Frank is a good companion for the NGA’s exhibition, which presents all 83 photographs from the book in the same order. The exhibit has left Washington, is now at San Francisco MoMA and will move to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in September.
Photo Credits: Courtesy of Aperture (top); Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey, Frank, 1955, Courtesy National Gallery of Art (bottom)