Wales 20 1953

Robert Frank made "Wales 20," a photographic collage, using gelatin silver print. Frank, a Swiss-American photographer, is celebrated for his raw and unflinching look at American society. This work is assembled from strips and individual frames of film. Marked with red grease pencil, it creates a kind of meta-commentary on the process of image-making. The images themselves show what looks to be a crowded pub scene, faces blurred and indistinct. These techniques mirror Frank's broader approach of capturing the grit and the grain of everyday life. Frank, an outsider, often focused on those living on the margins. The dense, almost claustrophobic composition here gives us a sense of being submerged in a crowd, a feeling of both connection and alienation. It’s a potent reflection on community, identity, and the experience of being human.