Vintage silver print 17 x 24 cm (6.7 x 9.4 in)
Photographer’s name stamp and “Life” copyright stamp on the reverse
PROVENANCE Lewis Lehr Collection

In March 1953, the Swiss photographer Robert Frank traveled to New York for the third time, this time to settle in America for good after extensive travels through Latin America and Europe. As a freelance photographer, Frank first worked for magazines such as Charm, Vogue or Look and supported Edward Steichen in curating photography exhibitions at MoMA. He also began preparing the project with which he was to make photographic history, The Americans. He was moving away from the style of narrative photo journalism propagated for example by Life – where this tendency was noticed and his pictures rejected.
Thus, the present photograph bears Life stamps, but was never published there. Frank’s concept of aproaching American civilisation as a foreign culture is reflected by the distance between him and his motif, which also has the directness of a street photograph in its slightly off-balance perspective. As one can tell from the signposts in the left, it was taken in Chautauqua in the state of New York.
During the 19th century, Chautauqua became a centre for adult education which subsequently developed numerous branches, summer academies and correspondence courses, thus becoming an instrument of the collectivisation and steering of leisure and entertainment culture – until this function was taken over by TV starting in the 1950s. This aspect of American culture was also to play an important role for Frank’s further photographic oeuvre.