Auto graveyard--Tennessee
1955
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
sheet: 20.2 x 25.3 cm (7 15/16 x 9 15/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Robert Frank Collection, Gift of Robert Frank
Accession Number
1990.28.397
Art Historical Context
In 1955, Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank capturedAuto Graveyard—Tennessee* during his transformative cross-country road trip across the United States This gelatin silver print, measuring just under 8 by 10 inches, depicts a desolate junkyard littered with rusted car carcasses under a vast sky, evoking the quiet decay of America's postwar prosperity. Frank's image is one of 83 photographs from his groundbreaking book *The Americans* (1959), which offered a raw, unflinching portrait of mid-century U.S. life, challenging the era's optimistic narrative of endless progress. As a master of str...
About the Artist
Robert Frank
Robert Frank (1924-2019) was a Swiss-American photographer and documentary filmmaker whose revolutionary approach to documentary photography fundamentally transformed the medium and influenced generations of artists. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, on November 9, 1924, to a middle-class Jewish family, Frank began his photographic apprenticeship in 1941, working with commercial photographers before im...