Family--Wellfleet 3
Summer 1962
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
contact sheet
Dimensions
overall: 25.1 x 20.1 cm (9 7/8 x 7 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
1990.28.3303
Art Historical Context
**Family—Wellfleet 3** by Frank captures an intimate family moment from the summer of 1962 Wellfleet, a coastal town on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Printed as a contact sheet—a grid of unedited negatives exposed directly onto photographic paper—this 25.1 x 20.1 cm work reveals Frank's raw creative process. Unlike polished prints, contact sheets offer a candid glimpse into the photographer's selections, showcasing multiple frames from a single roll of film. Housed in the National Gallery of Art's Department of Photographs, it comes from the artist's own collection, gifted to the museum. Swiss-bor...
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...