Celebration--Children c. 1945

Robert Frank made this silver gelatin print, Celebration--Children, sometime in the twentieth century. You know, there’s something about the way the tones are handled in this photo, how they blend and blur to form a mass of faces, that reminds me of my own approach to painting. It's all about the process. The image is kind of grainy, full of these tiny dots that make up the whole scene. And it's cropped in such a way that you feel like you're right in the middle of the crowd, almost overwhelmed by it. Look at the faces, they're all squished together, some smiling, some serious, all caught in this moment of excitement. There’s this little kid near the front, clutching an American flag, it's like a burst of hope amidst all the chaos. Frank's work, like that of Helen Levitt, seems to capture these fleeting moments of everyday life. It’s like he’s saying, “Hey, look at this! This is what it feels like to be alive.”