Buildings and street--Chicago
1956
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
sheet: 20.3 x 25.3 cm (8 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
1990.28.1083
Art Historical Context
Robert Frank's *Buildings and street—Chicago* (1956) captures the gritty pulse of mid-20th-century urban America. Shot during Frank's transformative cross-country road trip—funded by a Guggenheim Fellowship—this gelatin silver print is part of the series that became his landmark photobook *The Americans* (1958). In Chicago, Frank turned his lens on everyday street life, revealing the stark architecture and bustling anonymity of the city amid post-World War II prosperity and social shifts. His unflinching gaze challenged the era's optimistic narratives, exposing subtle tensions in American iden...
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...