Album London/Wales, Roberta Franka to okres rozwoju w ktorym fotograf przestawil sie z tworczego romantyzmu na metaforyczny realizm. Fotografie z Londynu i Walii zbudowaly podwaliny pod jeden z najwiekszych projektow fotograficznych, The Americans.
“War is over; the heroic French population reaffirms superiority. Love,
Paris, and Flowers…but London was black, white, and gray, the elegance,
the style, all present in front of always changing fog. Then I met a
man from Wales talking about the Miners and I had read How Green Was My
Valley. This became my only try to make a ‘Story’.”
Robert Frank
London/Wales brings together two distinct bodies of work to
reveal a new understanding of Frank’s contribution to the history of
photography. Juxtaposing the world of money and the world of work in
post-war England, Frank photographed London bankers, workers, and
children, and Welsh coal miners and their families. These images
poetically evoke relationships between the classes during a time of
change in Britain. Setting a significant documentary precedent for
Frank’s best known work, The Americans, London/Wales
demonstrates the artist’s early interest in social commentary, the
narrative potential of photographic sequencing and his innovative use
of the expressionistic qualities of the medium. Featuring 90 black and
white photographs, London/Wales tells a timeless story of
cities, people, and institutions in transition through emotional,
evocative images while revealing Frank’s struggle to forge a new form
of poetic narrative photography.
