Robert Frank, Rodeo, New York City, 1955, gelatin silver print, 13” x 9 1/16”, Image via the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Sometimes an outsider’s perspective is keen.
Born and raised in Switzerland, the photographer Robert Frank immigrated to the United States in 1947. Within 10 years, Frank’s initial optimism about the country soured as he roamed throughout the U.S. on a Guggenheim grant taking pictures of real, ordinary people. The photographs were published in 1959 in the groundbreaking book, The Americans, which revealed the poverty and racism that existed during the post-war era of optimism and prosperity.
In Frank’s photograph entitled, Rodeo, New York City, he presents us with the 20th century cowboy in the city, a perfect symbol of post-war America on the world stage in the Atomic Era. He is a hero for democracy, yet he created the threatening, Cold War environment.
