Willem de Kooning 5 1961

This is a contact sheet by Robert Frank, a series of small, black and white images showing what seem to be de Kooning in his studio, maybe. I love how these images capture such a specific place and time, intimate and a bit voyeuristic. The filmstrip format itself is such a unique and beautiful artifact. The contact sheet is a tool. It’s a way to see everything at once, like a painter who steps back to see the whole canvas and then swoops in to add a little dab of ultramarine blue. With the contact sheet, the artist is in control of a sequence, a kind of choreography of images. It's like the artist is saying, "Here's what I saw, here's what I chose to share with you." I imagine Frank, a fellow artist, feeling a kinship with de Kooning. This is the lineage of artists, those who admire and inspire each other through the generations, each one adding their own flavor and spin to the ongoing conversation that is art history.