Obituary
Robert Frank, 94, ‘Americans’ photographer
BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
Robert Frank, the legendary photographer
whose gritty, snapshot
images showed the United
States to itself through a new lens, died
Monday at age 94. The New York Times
reported that he was in Inverness, Nova
Scotia, at the time of his death.
A Jewish immigrant from Switzerland,
Frank achieved fame with his
photo book “The Americans,” a collection
of his black-and-white pictures
gathered during trips across the country.
The stark images were seen as a form
of social criticism by some, as well as a
break with the formalized, stiff photographic
norms of the day.
Frank, who was friends with Beat
writer and icon Jack Kerouac, also directed
the iconic 1959 fi lm “Pull My
Daisy,” which featured Kerouac, poet
Allen Ginsberg, musician David Amram
and other art luminaries.
Frank and his second wife, June
Leaf, lived on Bleecker St. between the
Bowery and Elizabeth St. Lower East
Side documentarian Clayton Patterson
often saw the couple hanging out in
PHOTO BY CLAYTON PATTERSON
Robert Frank in front of his home
on Bleecker St. two years ago.
front of their building, which is next to
the Overthrow hipster boxing gym, at
9 Bleecker St., the former Yippie headquarters.
At fi rst, Frank was leery of the new
place, but turned out liking it.
“People would see him at Overthrow
all the time,” Patterson said, “because
he lived right next door. He would often
be sitting outside.”
Patterson said, in addition to Kerouac
and Ginsberg, Frank was also close
with Harry Smith, the underground
experimental fi lmmaker. He said Frank
would regularly summer in Canada.
“He recently did this series of Downtown
Jewish photographers — David
Sandler, Goldis,” Patterson said. “He
was slow — I mean, he’s a big guy.
Very friendly, quiet and unassuming.
Dressed very not fl ashy, low key. You
wouldn’t guess him to be the worldfamous
photographer that he is.”
Amram, 88, recalled Frank and making
“Pull My Daisy.”
“He was the one who fi lmed that
and really took 50 hours of clowning
around, and somehow with his great
photography and patience, made it into
a fi lm,” he said.
“He had a 16-millimeter simple camera
and a wooden tripod. It was a silent
movie, and we would try to see if we
could make him laugh so hard the tripod
would shake. He had tears rolling
down his face. Jack came in and did a
spoken narration after it all happened.
We were just kidding around and having
a huge party.”
As for Frank personally, Amram said,
“He was kind of shy. People thought he
was kind of standoffi sh, but he was actually
shy. He was very intelligent and
warm. He would get very upset when
he thought people were pretentious or
imperious. He was very much an antisnob.
He never expected that level of
success. So he was uncomfortable with
people who would grovel.
“He came to New York to escape
what he felt was a stuffy, uptight society
in Switzerland,” Amram continued.
“When he saw snobbery here or any
kind of elitism, he was very upset. He
liked it when people treated each other
with respect and were real.”
As for the powerful impact of Frank’s
photography on its times, Amram noted,
“The New York of the 1950s and
America in general then was a much
more stratifi ed society.”
According to the Times, Frank’s two
children, Pablo and Andrea, predeceased
him.
In addition to June Leaf, he is also
survived by his fi rst wife, Mary Frank.
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