“The Way These Painters Lived
From his window across a courtyard, Frank could watch the painter Willem de Kooning as he paced in his studio and contemplated his canvas. “I think that the people that influenced me most were the abstractionist painters I met; and what influenced me strongly was the way these painters lived, Frank said of his time embedded in New York City’s vibrant arts community. They were people who really believed in what they did. So it reinforced my belief that you could really follow your intuition… You could photograph what you felt like.”
– wall tag quote from Robert Frank MoMA exhibition 2024
When Robert Frank was still alive he worked with Gerhard Steidl to produce a series of dreamy photo books. All in the twenty dollar range, they are gorgeous beyond words. We have five but not “Park/Sleep.” I was looking at the Amazon listing for that one as we shopped for Duane and I came across these two customer reviews:
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“The book is about his life I guess and it IS ROBERT FRANK so I wonder why he thinks it’s important for us to see. If you are a photographer, as I am, you probably have similar pictures that you made.
They will never be published because you are not HIM.”
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“Just an intractable artist, not the Robert Frank from The Americans, the great photographer we all loved.
I don’t like this explicit despair.”
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We saw the recent/fantastic Robert Frank shows at MoMA with Duane a few weeks ago and Peggi photographed a Steidl book in the bookstore that was about the making of these Steidl books. We ordered that one for Duane and we sent him this small sculpture (above.) Duane’s package to us was the catalog from the MoMA show. Peggi and I spent Christmas morning with it and it was real gift to see the show again.
My brother, Mark, and his wife, Amy, came up from New York for Christmas and Hanukkah and gave us a book they bought at the Jewish Museum for their current show, “Draw Them In Paint Them Out: Trenton Doyle Confronts Philip Guston.” My first thought was “No Contest” but we gave it a chance and fell in love with it. With essays by the artist and conversation with Art Spiegelman, Hancock’s paintings came to life. We plan to see the show in person when we visit New York in February.
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