Mary, Pablo, and Andrea--Los Angeles 1956

Robert Frank made this photograph, ‘Mary, Pablo, and Andrea – Los Angeles’, by exposing film to light, fixing a moment in time. The tonality is beautiful, with a full range of grays, from the bright window light to the dark shadows on the children’s faces. I imagine Frank coaxing his children into the shot. Did they understand what he was trying to do? The little girl looks like she would rather be doing something else! I wonder about Frank, how he's thinking about Cartier-Bresson, maybe even painting, thinking about capturing a “decisive moment” in the history of his family. I bet he felt frustrated sometimes. As a painter I can relate. He must have learned to embrace the unexpected. The light here has an emotional charge, a little melancholy, a little tense. It reminds me of other photographers and painters working with similar themes of family and memory, like Nan Goldin, Alice Neel, or Chantal Joffe. Every artist, including Frank, is inspired by someone, responding and contributing to the ongoing conversation we call art history.