Dig It: Robert Frank by Louis Faurer

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (Estate of Louis Faurer)

Louis Faurer, Robert Frank in Pin Striped Suit, 1947

Leslie Ureña, an associate curator of photographs at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. has written a slight but engaging article about Robert Frank as his fellow photographers saw him, featuring two portraits of Frank from the National Portrait Gallery's collection.

You know how some photographers just don't grab you? They're famous and all that, they get attention, inclusion in books, shows, etc., but you just don't get the work—they leave you cold? First of all there's nothing wrong with that—it's natural, just as you find some members of the sex that appeals to you to be attractive and others not, just as you "click" with some songs or pieces of music and others not. Just a matter of chemistry. 

Well, for some reason I have the opposite thing with Louis Faurer. It's not like his pictures blow me away, and I can't point to anything in particular I think they have to offer that's unique or unusual. I just like his stuff, is all. Chemistry, I guess. Granted, I like that "Midcentury modern" B&W style of photography to start with, but still, there's something about Louis Faurer that I just dig.

Mike
(Thanks to Mike Potter)

[Ed. note: TOP is off on Saturdays. Back on Sunday!]

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Comments

[Andrew Lamb]

Didn’t Robert Frank and return the favour? I seem to recall a Frank photo of Faurer, where the latter is raising his hat. I haven’t checked this and may be talking out of my, er, chapeau.

[John Denniston]

I notice that Faurer signed the print on the front over the image. Don't see that often except with paintings.

[Michael Perini]

Mike
I enjoyed the article very much, Thanks

[David Comdico]

Faurer's film on Times Square is pretty awesome.

[Andrew Lamb]

"I seem to recall a Frank photo of Faurer, where the latter is raising his hat."

Checked it out. It's reproduced on page 21 of Louis Faurer by Anne Wilkes Tucker published by Merrell. It's a charming photo.

[Chip McDaniel]

Robert is sporting some pretty long hair for 1947 in this photo. Guess he ws ahead of his time in many ways.