Couple watching TV in lobby--Casper, Wyoming
1956
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
sheet: 25.2 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
1990.28.1014
Art Historical Context
In 1956, Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank captured *Couple watching TV in--Casper, Wyoming* during his transformative cross-country road trip across the United States funded by a Guggenheim Fellowship. This gelatin silver print, a classic black-and-white process prized for its rich tonal range and sharp detail, measures just 25.2 x 20.3 cm, intimate scrutiny of mid-20th-century American life. Frank's image freezes a mundane yet poignant moment: a couple absorbed in a lobby television, emblematic of the booming postwar consumer culture where TV sets became fixtures in public spaces like hot...
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...