40 Fotos, page 16 1946

This is a photograph by Robert Frank, one of forty, and here it's on page 16. What strikes me about this image is how he transforms something so ordinary - eggs - into a study of form and light. The monochrome palette really throws the textural qualities of the eggs into sharp relief. Look at the speckled surfaces, the subtle gradations of light and shadow that give them volume and weight. There's a sort of ghostly egg overlapping the others, like a memory or a premonition of cracking. The dark background is almost like a void, making the eggs float in this weird, undefined space. It's like a still life but without the life, if you know what I mean? Frank was interested in the off-kilter, the everyday, and the overlooked. You might also see some shared interests with artists like Gerhard Richter, who similarly plays with realism and abstraction in his photographic paintings. Neither wants to give us a single, clear answer.