Guggenheim 615--Westlake and San Francisco c. 1956

Robert Frank made this contact sheet, Guggenheim 615--Westlake and San Francisco, a sequence of dark and moody black and white photographs, sometime in the mid-twentieth century. I feel like I am right there with Frank, in the darkroom, witnessing his mind at work. The sequence feels intuitively arranged. Frank is marking the sheet with notes and circles in grease pencil, focusing our attention. It’s like he’s saying, “Look at this, and this, and this…” There are so many images of buildings, taken at night. Perhaps he was up late, wandering the city. The architecture looms large in the frame, a bit menacing. The surfaces are grainy and unfocused, but somehow feel very present. It reminds me of the urban landscapes of painters like Edward Hopper or maybe even the stark black and white photographs of someone like Roy DeCarava. It's like he's saying something about the dark, quiet beauty of the modern city.