Opera no number
1965
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
contact sheet
Dimensions
sheet: 25.2 x 20.2 cm (9 15/16 x 7 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
1994.37.1211
Art Historical Context
"Opera no number" (1965) by Robert Frank invites visitors into the intimate workings of one of the 20th century's most influential photographers. Swiss-born Frank, renowned for his raw, candid street photography that reshaped documentary traditions, gifted this contact sheet to the National Gallery of Art his personal collection. Measuring a compact 25.2 x 20.2 cm, it captures the essence of mid-1960s experimentation, a period when Frank continued probing American culture with unflinching honesty. As a contact sheet—a proof print created by exposing negatives directly onto paper—this medium r...
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...