Robert Frank: Portfolio

by Robert Frank (Photographer)

When Robert Frank immigrated to New York from Zurich in 1947, having apprenticed with commercial photographers in his hometown, the aspiring young photographer brought along his portfolio to help him secure employment. Portfolio is the facsimile version of this fascinating object. Containing Frank's earliest original photographs as well the work of other photographers which he had retouched, the portfolio presents images of rural life in Switzerland alongside alpine landscapes, cityscapes and still-lifes. A guaranteed collector's item, this slim, beautifully printed volume contains the seeds of a career of such scope and influence that even the ambitious 23-year-old Robert Frank could never have anticipated it.

Genres: Photography

48 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Librarian 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.

Reviews

[victoria marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before emigrating from Switzerland to the USA in 1947 I prepared a portfolio of 40 photographs to help me introduce my work to magazine editors in the hope of getting jobs.

The portfolio was bound together and included a title page image of a shutter with a close up of an eye at its center.

—Robert Frank
New York City, March 2009

photography, forever.