Mary posing with sculpture--Santa Cruz, California
1956
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →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
1990.28.788
Art Historical Context
In 1956, Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank capturedMary Posing with Sculpture—Santa, California*, a candid silver print now housed in the National Gallery of. This intimate black-and-white image depicts a woman named Mary striking a playful pose beside an outdoor sculpture along the California coast, evoking the everyday leisure of mid-20th-century American life. At just 20.3 x 25.2 cm, its modest scale invites close viewing, revealing Frank's masterful use of natural light and shadow to blend human spontaneity with sculptural form. Frank took this photograph during his transformative cros...
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...