The Americans by Robert Frank

The Americans
180 pages; Steidl/National Gallery of Art, Washington
I love photographs; I have a small collection of black and whites, but not a Robert Frank. If you gave me a choice between the Hope diamond and one of his images, I would take the Robert Frank. This is a book of pictures he took in the mid-1950s while traveling across America. I love the one of the men at a funeral in South Carolina, the picture of the man standing in front of the jukebox, the girl in the elevator and the one of the open road. I also go back to the image of a nanny—she's black, very dark-skinned—holding this baby who is so white, and it almost seems as if the baby has an expression of entitlement on his face. Each of Frank's photographs is like a little novella or little movie, and I get so lost in them.
— Mary-Louise Parker