Early New York City no number c. 1948 - 1950

This gelatin silver print, *Early New York City no number,* made by Robert Frank, feels like a storyboard or film reel, little narratives caught between each frame. Looking at the images laid out in strips, I’m imagining Frank walking the streets of New York, holding up his camera, snapping pictures, moving on to the next thing that caught his eye. Did he know what he was looking for? I love seeing the Fifth Avenue Coach Company buses appearing in several frames, they act like a recurring motif, giving a structure and a rhythm to the everyday. The grey scale gives a uniformity to the scenes, but I want to see the real New York, the grit and the smells and the colours of the street life. It’s almost as if Frank knew he was catching ghosts, traces of a life now past. Like all artists, Frank was having a conversation with his contemporaries and all the artists who came before him. He captured the city as he saw it, and now we can too.