Artheon MuseumArtheonMuseum

Filming, CBS TV studio--Burbank, California

Robert Frank

c. 1955/1956

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Medium

gelatin silver print

Dimensions

sheet: 20.3 x 25.2 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

1990.28.633

Art Historical Context

In the mid-1950s, Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank captured the pulse of post-war America with his unflinching lens, culminating in his landmark book *The Americans* (1958). *Filming, CBS TV—Burbank, California* (c. 1955/1956) offers a glimpse into this era's burgeoning television culture. Shot at the CBS studio in Burbank, image likely documents the behind-the-scenes frenzy of live broadcasting, a symbol of America's mass media boom and the shift toward a visually saturated society. Frank's work often peeled back the glossy surface of the American Dream, revealing its contradictions throu...

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...

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