Guggenheim 739/Americans 79--Chicago 1956

Robert Frank's "Guggenheim 739/Americans 79--Chicago" is a contact sheet, a workprint of images, that offers a peek into Frank's photographic process during his 1950s road trip across America. Frank, a Swiss immigrant, captured a vision of America that was starkly different from the idealized images of the time. Here, the sequence of images, marked and cropped, reveals Frank’s perspective as an outsider looking in, a perspective that challenged the dominant narratives of American exceptionalism and prosperity. The contact sheet allows us to see the unedited reality, revealing not only the selected image but also the numerous outtakes, alternate compositions, and chance moments. The mundane and the marginalized take center stage. Frank’s work resonates with a sense of alienation, reflecting the unease and anxieties simmering beneath the surface of postwar America. He said he was trying to capture “what one feels when one looks and discovers America." Ultimately, "Guggenheim 739/Americans 79--Chicago" captures an emotional landscape, a raw and unfiltered glimpse into the heart of a nation grappling with its identity.