Cadillacs no number 1955 - 1956

This is "Cadillacs no number," a photo by Robert Frank, a Swiss-American photographer who passed away in 2019. This image, part of a larger project, offers a critical gaze at American society. In the mid-1950s, Frank embarked on a road trip across the United States, funded by a Guggenheim Fellowship. This project culminated in his seminal book, "The Americans," published in 1958. Frank's photographs often captured the emotional and social reality of America, challenging the idealized images prevalent at the time. The Cadillac, a symbol of American prosperity and excess, is rendered here in fragmented sequences, almost as though the American dream is a series of moments. As you look at it, consider the complexities of identity, class, and the promises of a society as seen through the lens of an outsider. Frank's work invites us to question what it means to belong, to consume, and to dream in a landscape marked by both beauty and inequality.