Robert Frank in Person

ELSON LECTURE

The Elson Lecture Series features distinguished contemporary artists whose work is represented in the Gallery's permanent collection. The Honorable and Mrs. Edward E. Elson generously endowed this series in 1992.

A Conversation with Robert Frank

March 26 at 3:30

East Building Concourse, Auditorium

Robert Frank, photographer, in conversation with Sarah Greenough, senior curator and head of the department of photographs, National Gallery of Art.

For more than fifty years Robert Frank has exerted a profound influence on contemporary photography, film, and art. His seminal book The Americans, first published in 1958 and 1959, changed the course of twentieth-century photography. In eighty-three photographs, he looked beneath the surface of American life to reveal not only social, economic, and political tensions, but also new areas of beauty in simple, overlooked corners of American life. His subject matter—cars, jukeboxes, even the road itself—was as innovative as his seemingly intuitive, off-kilter, and brilliantly incisive style. Yet the book’s soaring reputation never sat comfortably on Frank’s shoulders. Since the late 1950s he has restlessly continued to push his art in new ways, making both films and photographs that question the relationship between art and life and between the obvious symbolic meaning of a photograph and its personal significance to him

In anticipation of high attendance, this program will be simulcast in the East Building Small Auditorium and the West Building Lecture Hall. The program will also be recorded and a screening of the recording will be shown on Tuesday, March 31, at noon in the East Building Auditorium.

.....And I'm going.  With Justin.  Hopefully.  You should be a little jealous :P