Machine--Design c. 1941

Robert Frank made this gelatin silver print, entitled ‘Machine—Design,’ sometime in the mid-twentieth century. This is not a portrait of a machine as such. Instead, it’s a study of what we might call ‘machine-ness.’ Frank was Swiss-born but made his name photographing the United States, especially in his famous book 'The Americans'. That project, made in the 1950s, captures a sense of alienation and unease beneath the surface of booming post-war America. This image belongs to that wider feeling. Note the stark contrast between the clean, rounded shapes and the grime and decay of the actual machine. The picture asks us to reconsider the glorification of industry so common in the first half of the 20th century. Through photographs like this one, we can rethink those earlier certainties. We begin to see how social and political forces work to construct images. Accessing those forces relies on historical research and critical insight.