New York City 7 1960

Robert Frank shot this contact sheet, ‘New York City 7,’ using a small handheld camera. Just imagine him walking around, observing closely, with a hunger to capture the world as he saw it. I think the most poignant image on the sheet is the row of men in hats, their backs turned to us, gazing out at the New York skyline across the water. You can almost feel the stillness of the moment, the quiet contemplation, the shared experience of viewing a familiar yet ever-changing cityscape. What were they thinking, these figures in their hats? The blurry, almost dreamlike quality of the black and white image lends a nostalgic air, hinting at the fleeting nature of time and memory. Frank’s work is like that - it reminds us that art is a continuous dialogue, artists responding to one another across time.