London 56 1952 - 1953

Curator: Robert Frank’s contact sheet, "London 56," made between 1952 and 1953. Immediately you’re presented with these sequences of gelatin silver prints showing street scenes—cityscapes at dusk and dawn. Editor: A little bleak, no? Grainy and shadowy. It almost looks like outtakes from a noir film—bits and pieces, dark streets glistening with rain. There’s an unfinished feel. Curator: Frank was always chasing that grittiness, the real textures of the world as he saw them. This is a window into his process; you see how many shots he took, all the small variations, the deliberate act of seeking. Think about the darkroom as its own space of labor, manipulating the material world in the service of his artistic vision. Editor: Absolutely, and these streets were really material too, postwar London and very evocative—grimy, tired, trying to recover. You feel the weight of industry, the human element kind of dwarfed. It's also fascinating to think about how this aesthetic – the so-called “snapshot aesthetic” – became so influential. Curator: He turned ordinary into extraordinary. To use such mundane images of quotidian life, of dark places that nobody would look at twice is itself very poetic. He elevates this and yet shows you these darker sides of it. He also used photography in a fresh way – he saw beyond what was there; and wanted it to communicate. The people became secondary - it was about a bigger view. Editor: Yes. These frames represent the real physical material– the negative strip as object; what might usually remain unseen, is itself the work here. So interesting in his challenge of “traditional” image making. I imagine he didn't believe that there had to be a divide between the craft aspect and art. Curator: Perhaps not. But there is such emotion and truthfulness laid bare. Thank you for joining me today on this discovery. Editor: My pleasure – and yes, it certainly makes me think differently about photographs!