Convention hall—Chicago
1956
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 24.3 x 16.6 cm (9 9/16 x 6 9/16 in.) sheet: 25.3 x 20.3 cm (9 15/16 x 8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Robert Frank Collection, Gift of Robert Frank
Accession Number
1990.28.147
Art Historical Context
Robert Frank's *Convention Hall—Chicago* (1956), a gelatin silver from the National Gallery of Art's Robert Frank Collection, captures a pivotal moment in mid-20th-century American life. Shot during Frank's transformative cross-country road trip—funded by a Guggenheim Fellowship image is part of his groundbreaking series *The Americans*, later published as a photobook in 1959. The Swiss-born photographer, who became a U.S. citizen, turned his outsider's eye on the nation's political and social undercurrents, here focusing on a bustling convention hall that symbolizes the era's democratic fervo...
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...