Theater--Hollywood 19
August 1958
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
contact sheet
Dimensions
overall: 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
1990.28.2981
Art Historical Context
Step into the gritty glamour of 1950s Hollywood with *Theater--Hollywood *, a captivating contact sheet by Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank, captured in August 195. Frank, renowned for his seminal photobook *The Americans*produced during a Guggenheim-funded cross-country road trip—documented the raw undercurrents of postwar American life. This image, part of that iconic project, peers into a Hollywood theater, likely revealing the everyday patrons and faded marquee lights that contrasted sharply with Tinseltown's mythic allure. Printed as a contact sheet—a direct positive print of an enti...
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...