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Robert Frank: Good days quiet
The iconic American photographer documents his weather-worn home in Mabou, Novia Scotia In this, Robert Frank’s newest book, he both acknowledges and moves beyond his acclaimed visual diaries (2010–17), which juxtapose iconic photos from throughout his career with the more personal pictures he makes today and suggestive, often autobiographical text fragments. In Good days quiet Frank’s focus is life inside and outside his beloved weather-beaten wooden house in Mabou, where he has spent summers for decades with his wife June Leaf.
Among portraits of Leaf, Allen Ginsberg and Frank’s son are images of the house’s simple interior with its wood-fueled iron stove, humble furniture and bare light bulbs, and views of the land and sea by the snow-covered, windswept, stormy or lit by the dying sun.
Frank’s Polaroid prints show various deliberate states of deterioration and manipulation at his hands, including texts that move from the merely descriptive (“watching the crows”) to the emotive (“memories,” “grey sea―old house / can you hear the music”). As always in Frank’s books, his message lies primarily in the photos’ lyrical sequence, an influential approach to the photobook pioneered by and today well at home in his 94-year-old hands.
Robert Frank was born in Zurich in 1924 and immigrated to the United States in 1947. He is best known for his seminal book The Americans , first published in English in 1959, which gave rise to a distinctly new form of the photobook, and his experimental film Pull My Daisy (1959). Frank’s other important projects include the books Black White and Things (1954), The Lines of My Hand (1972) and the film Cocksucker Blues for the Rolling Stones (1972). He divides his time between New York City and Nova Scotia, Canada.
Among portraits of Leaf, Allen Ginsberg and Frank’s son are images of the house’s simple interior with its wood-fueled iron stove, humble furniture and bare light bulbs, and views of the land and sea by the snow-covered, windswept, stormy or lit by the dying sun.
Frank’s Polaroid prints show various deliberate states of deterioration and manipulation at his hands, including texts that move from the merely descriptive (“watching the crows”) to the emotive (“memories,” “grey sea―old house / can you hear the music”). As always in Frank’s books, his message lies primarily in the photos’ lyrical sequence, an influential approach to the photobook pioneered by and today well at home in his 94-year-old hands.
Robert Frank was born in Zurich in 1924 and immigrated to the United States in 1947. He is best known for his seminal book The Americans , first published in English in 1959, which gave rise to a distinctly new form of the photobook, and his experimental film Pull My Daisy (1959). Frank’s other important projects include the books Black White and Things (1954), The Lines of My Hand (1972) and the film Cocksucker Blues for the Rolling Stones (1972). He divides his time between New York City and Nova Scotia, Canada.
- GenresPhotography
64 pages, Paperback
Published April 23, 2019
6 people want to read
About the author
Robert Frank
56 books94 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss American photographer and documentary filmmaker. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled The Americans, earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and nuanced outsider's view of American society. Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2014, said The Americans "changed the nature of photography, what it could say and how it could say it. [ ... ] it remains perhaps the most influential photography book of the 20th century." Frank later expanded into film and video and experimented with manipulating photographs and photomontage.
Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss American photographer and documentary filmmaker. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled The Americans, earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and nuanced outsider's view of American society. Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2014, said The Americans "changed the nature of photography, what it could say and how it could say it. [ ... ] it remains perhaps the most influential photography book of the 20th century." Frank later expanded into film and video and experimented with manipulating photographs and photomontage.
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January 7, 2022
The photos in this book are not dated, so perhaps like memories, they are all chronologically mixed up.
I do think about his time in Nova Scotia. Although the terrain looks ideal in its isolation, some of the winter shots with immense amounts of snow and frozen oceans look unbearable. The warmth in this book comes from photos of the friends who visited him, of which there is one Ginsberg photo.
I love Franks work. although this Steidl edition falls to pieces, maybe this was on purpose. These are only memories after all.
I do think about his time in Nova Scotia. Although the terrain looks ideal in its isolation, some of the winter shots with immense amounts of snow and frozen oceans look unbearable. The warmth in this book comes from photos of the friends who visited him, of which there is one Ginsberg photo.
I love Franks work. although this Steidl edition falls to pieces, maybe this was on purpose. These are only memories after all.
Displaying 1 of 1 review