Westlake, California 1956

Robert Frank snapped this photograph, Westlake, California, sometime in the mid-twentieth century, using his camera to capture a slice of American life. The picture planes are flat, giving a starkness to the image, like a Hopper painting, but in monochrome. There’s a sign on the corner advertising a ‘Model Home’. I imagine Frank, positioning himself on that street corner, deciding what to include in the frame. The houses receding into the distance must have seemed like the most interesting element. Frank was interested in the everyday, the vernacular, and the vernacular here is the architecture. It is boxy and uniform. Frank presents the viewer with a scene and allows us to find our own meaning in it. He reminds us that the world is full of scenes waiting to be discovered. That’s what other artists do, they show us how to look.