New York City, Wellfleet, Switzerland, and Early New York City
1951-1962
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
contact sheet
Dimensions
sheet: 21.5 × 27.7 cm (8 7/16 × 10 7/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Robert Frank Collection, Gift of Robert Frank
Accession Number
2012.139.6
Art Historical Context
This contact sheet by Robert Frank, titled *New York City, Well, Switzerland, and Early York City* (1951–1962), offers a rare glimpse into the working process of one of the 20th century's most influential photographers. Frank, a Swiss-born artist who immigrated to the United States in 7, captured these black-and-white images across diverse locations—from bustling New York streets to the serene Cape Cod town of Wellfleet and his European homeland. Spanning over a decade, the sheet measures a modest 21.5 × 27.7 cm and preserves a grid of contact prints directly from film negatives, a technique p...
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...