In 1955, the U.S. was country in a transition. Following World War II, the country was figuring out its place as superpower. The population was entering a period of social awareness. Segregation was rife and McCarthyism was in full flow. Against this historical backdrop, two photographers set off the explore America.
Robert Frank and Todd Webb were awarded grants by the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation to survey the changing culture of the United States. Frank took a cross-country trip by car to document the nation. Todd Webb decided to walk, boat and bike across the country to depict “vanishing Americana, and the way of life that is taking its place.”
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is displaying the pair’s projects in the exhibition “Robert Frank and Todd Webb: Across America 1955,” through Jan. 7.
In 1955, 49-year-old Webb was an established artist, with 14 exhibitions to his name between 1946 and 1966 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Frank would go on to be an influential photographer, but in 1955 he was still trying to establish himself.
The result of Swiss-born Frank’s journey was “The Americans,” a book of photographs with a foreword by Jack Kerouac, which has been described by Sean O’Hagan as “a now classic photography book in the iconoclastic spirit of the Beats.” The exhibition has copies of the original 1959 printing in display cases with miscellaneous letters and Frank’s Guggenheim Fellowship application form.
Webb’s photos are on display for the first time, according to a museum release. Despite shooting 10,000 images, Webb chose not to publish and moved on to other projects.
MFAH curator of photography Lisa Volpe has paired many of the photographs to allow the viewer to compare and contrast the photographers’ works. Being able to stand and look at how each artist treated similar themes gives an insight into each man’s sensibilities.
Some of the differences are subtle. The opening pair of images features over-the-shoulder shots of men. Frank’s “Top of the Empire State Building, New York, NY” features two men looking out over the sprawling city. One looks as if he is excitedly pointing out landmarks. The foreground is highlighted only by the illuminated face and cap of a small boy walking past. There is a sense of excitement, of growth. Webb’s “Yom Kippur, East River, New York City” also features the backs of men, this time seemingly in quiet meditation as they ride the boat. A young boy in the foreground wearing a yarmulke looks quietly at the shore.
The two images are similar in subject and composition, yet they could not be farther apart in sensibility. The two men see the same America but through completely different lenses. Volpe writes the exhibition, “reveals the humanity in Webb’s work, and the underrecognized, but profound hope in Frank’s photographs.”
Frank’s “Canal Street, New Orleans” and Webb’s “Zoo, St. Louis, MO” capture busy crowds with differing viewpoints. In Frank’s image, people are going about their business, except a white face barely visible on the left and a Black face on the right seem to break the fourth wall and stare challengingly at the camera, each with an air of suspicion. Webb’s image is more consciously social commentary. A young Black woman traverses the crowd with her head down, while a white woman seems to clutch at her purse and look with suspicion at the girl. Webb wrote in his journal, “Soon we will wonder how it happened. How Joe McCarthy got to be the boss — how we became tools of Hitler like discrimination.”
A pair of cowboys sum up the commonalities of American life. Frank’s “Rodeo, New York City” features a cowboy casually leaning on a city trashcan, lighting a cigarette. An unlikely sight on a major urban street. Webb’s “Cowboy, Lexington NE,” features a solitary man leaning on a parking meter. It is more indicative of rural America.
As wonderful as the pairs are, one single photo stands out as symbol of the speed the country was approaching modernity. Frank’s “Elevator, Miami Beach” is a stunning image. The young woman elevator operator stares blankly into nothingness as people exit. The surrounding figures are blurred as they race to whatever appointment awaits them. She, on the other hand, looks lost in thought, or maybe lost without thought, in the repetition of her job. One wonders what her life became.
It is a snapshot of a moment, yet that moment expands to suggest a story as expansive as the country the two men explored. Seven decades later, it is still a journey worth taking.
For more information, visit mfah.org.
