June/Paolo Roversi
c. 2012
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
internal dye diffusion transfer print (Polaroid SX-70)
Dimensions
image/sheet: 9 × 7.3 cm (3 9/16 × 2 7/8 in.) mount: 10.2 × 10.3 cm (4 × 4 1/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Jane P. Watkins
Accession Number
2015.186.1.26
Art Historical Context
Robert Frank's *June/Paolo R* (c. 2012) captures the intimate, late-career poetry of one of photography's most influential figures. Born in Switzerland in 1924 and later an American icon, Frank revolutionized documentary photography with his seminal 1958 book *The*, a raw road-trip chronicle that exposed the underbelly of mid-century U.S. life. By 2012, in his 80s, Frank had turned to more personal, experimental work, often using Polaroid cameras to create spontaneous, tactile images that blurred the line between snapshot and art. This small gem is an internal dye diffusion transfer print fro...
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...