Guggenheim 357/Americans 62--Houston, Texas 1955

Robert Frank made this photographic contact sheet, Guggenheim 357/Americans 62--Houston, Texas, sometime in the 1960s. It’s a window into his process, those decisive moments and near misses that make up a body of work. I can imagine Frank in his darkroom, hunched over, examining each frame. There are rows of images, each a tiny glimpse into mid-century America – roadside views, interiors, groups of people. He circles some frames, maybe the ones that resonated most, the ones that felt right. It's like a painter’s sketchbook, a place for exploration and experimentation. You see the starts and stops, the variations on a theme. Maybe he was thinking about Walker Evans or the great social documentarians of the past. It’s all about seeing and feeling, responding to the world with an open heart and a critical eye. And that, for me, is what art is all about.