Guggenheim 483--Twentieth Century Fox film studio, Burbank, California
February 1956
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
contact sheet
Dimensions
overall: 25.3 x 20.4 cm (9 15/16 x 8 1/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Robert Frank Collection, Gift of Robert Frank
Accession Number
1990.28.2509
Art Historical Context
In February 1956, Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank captured this contact sheet at the Twentieth Century Fox film studio inank, California, as part of his groundbreaking Guggenheim Fellowship project. Titled *Guggenheim 483*, it documents a pivotal moment in Frank's cross-country road trip across America, which resulted in his iconic 1959 photobook *The Americans*. work exemplifies Frank's raw, unflinching gaze on mid-20th-century U.S. life, blending documentary realism with subtle critique of the era's optimism and contradictions—here, the glitzy facade of Hollywood against everyday grit. ...
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...