Robert Frank1955 Butte, Montana. The Americans

God bless America in the mid-50’s. “Leave it to Beaver” showed

us how happy and innocent the times were, but things weren’t

quite so perfect. Looking past the same perspective in the paint-

ing, Edward Hopper and Robert Frank both showed a starker side

of the 50’s.

2d

With the combination of flannel and diner-ish clothing, there is

little doubt the family is of the working class. The popularity of

flannel, the lumberjack’s first choice in clothing, in America’s

northwest sure didn’t escape Butte, Montana.

1b 1a

3d

Legs hang from up above surround her upper body, much like a picture of somebody posing in front

of the massive white legs at the Lincoln Memorial Center. Similarly, the white pants look a whole lot

like Lennon’s legs on the Abbey Road album. How liberating it is to sit on top of a moving vehicle.

2c

Christine, a horror novel by Stephen King, is also the name of

a possessed antique Plymouth Fury from the 1950’s. It shares the

same slick lines, reflective surface, and slightly disturbing and

dark personality of Frank’s photograph.

The woman is the focus of the photograph, try not losing your-

self in her eyes, one of which is the bindi dot on her forehead

(the third spiritual eye). Her veil’s colors, saturated shades of

carmine and crimson are by no means unique to her. It can be

deduced through her attire that she is married (the red in her

hair), Hindu (the bindi), and of a lower caste (her apparel).

3e

Hanging legs from up top surround the woman’s upper body,

she is naturally framed like a small child peeking through her

father’s legs.

2c

The pilgrimage to Uttar Pradesh is the largest gathering of

humanity, an annual mission for millions Hindus. Is that a Jeep

they’re using? The term ‘jeep’ was a slang word used in World

War I to refer to an unproven vehicle. The Jeep in the photograph

looks like it’s held together with hay and loose garments.

3f

Like the famous sculpture of the “The Thinker” by Auguste

Rodin, the kid’s fist partially covers his face. His posture makes

us wonder: what’s he thinking, what’s he looking at?

3e

There’s little resemblance to the stereotypical nuclear family in post-war America. Jackie Coogan,

an American actor, played two unorthodox family characters. His portrayal of Charlie Chaplin’s

little buddy in “The Kid” and Uncle Fester in the television series, the Addams Family. The child and

woman in the photograph have a striking resemblance to Coogan.

1a

1b

“The Kid” Uncle Fester

Lumberjack — Waitress

Nighthawks — Streamlined American Train

Stephen King’s “Christine”

Thinking man

Lincoln Memorial Abbey Road, John Lennon’s legs

Bindi — Afghan Village Girl — Mary Magdalen

Between legs

Jeep

13

f

b

2c

womankid

car

e

a

d

1

2b

a

c

e

d

woman

vehicle

legs3

1

a

b

woman

face

flannel clothes

3

e

f

kid

face

Butte, Montana

2

c

d

car

perspective

metal

posture

1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Raghubir Singh1989 Pilgrim. Uttar Pradesh

Leon Hong2006 Los Angeles, California

Working class

Americana era

Disturbing

Introspection

Family of yester-year

1

a

b

woman

face/veil

carmine clothes

c

vehicle

man sitting

3

d

e

legs

framed

white pants

Pilgrim

2

Freedom

Windows to the soul

Framed

Mission: pilgrimage

Referential

Framed by the open window of an automobile’s door,

a woman in a flannel jacket dominates the photograph.

Her left elbow protrudes out while she sits and watches an

occurrence outside. Behind her leans a child, also focusing

his attention somewhere to the distance. He leans in, hiding

his chin with his clenched fist. The contrast in the photo-

graph creates areas of darkness in which the edges of

different objects blur. Likewise, the flannel jacket fades into

the black shadows behind her. In contrast to the darkness,

a barely visible child in the back window is obscured by the

glare of the sky’s reflection. Combination of the curvaceous

and streamlined car lines with the angled framing of the

car creates a sense of extreme perspective. Lines seem to

converge prematurely at the side of the photograph.

The photograph, taken in Montana’s Butte town, depicts

a moment in 1955. Butte experienced a rapid and prosperous

growth due an exploding copper mining industry thirty

years prior. The popularity of flannel, the lumberjack’s

choice in clothing, in America’s northwest didn’t escape

Butte, Montana. The large woman wears her flannel coat

over a unfashionable patterned dress. Her heavyset body-

size is quite apparent. The cropping of the automobile’s

form makes it impossible to discern the make and model.

Much like Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks painting, the

extreme perspective of the car is direct and sharp. In both

the painting and the photograph, the frame of the window

separates the viewer from the players. Robert Frank’s framing

and angle of the subject is not unlike traditional photo-

graphs of trains. The convergence of lines creates depth and

layers of presence. Undeniably, the woman has the most

presence. Her size, her attitude commands attention. She

looks like she would make a great bully. Her clothing are

typical American working class attire. Her flannel jacket,

with the typical crosshatching pattern, with sleeves too

short to cover the large lady’s protruding arms. Like an

unamusing clown, the woman’s mouth looks open, but upon

closer inspection, the black area is really her closed dark

lips. The hierarchy of the three, very likely a family, is quite

apparent. The child behind her pales in comparison, and the

baby in the back-seat is almost non-existent. Although each

subject in the photograph is weighted differently, they all

mirror the same expression. The photograph demonstrates

a reflection of human reaction towards the same event.

Essay by Leon Hong, Los Angeles 2006 Robert Frank, born in

Zürich, Switzerland (1924),

gained notability for his

1955 publication of the

Americans, a collection of

photographs taken on a two

year trip across America.

Butte, Montana is one of

the 28,000 shots Frank had

taken in those two years

Frank.Butte, Montana. The Americans, 1955

The composition, the attitude, and the simplicity of the

picture intrigues me. The faces in the picture are intense

and focused, the fact that I will never know what they are

looking at becomes extremely disturbing and yet mesmer-

izing. Additionally, the bodies are framed in a fresh and

surprising perspective. Ironically, because the extreme

contrast kills much of the detail, a starkness and directness

is revealed in the photograph.

the faces areintense and focused

A1

That crazy feeling in America when the sun is hot on

the streets and music comes out of the jukebox or from

a nearby funeral, that’s what Robert Frank has captured in

these tremendous photographs taken as he traveled on the

road around practically forty-eight states in an old used car

(on Guggenheim Fellowship) and with the agility, mystery,

genius, sadness and strange secrecy of a shadow photo-

graphed scenes that have never been seen before on film. For

this he will definitely be hailed as a great artist in his field.

After seeing these pictures you end up finally not knowing

any more whether a jukebox is sadder than a coffin. That’s

because he’s always taking pictures of jukeboxes and coffins

–and intermediary mysteries like the Negro priest squatting

underneath the bright liquid belly mer of the Mississippi

at Baton Rouge for some reason at dusk or early dawn with

a white snowy cross and secret incantations never known

outside the bayou – or the picture of a chair in some cafe

with the sun coming in the window and setting on the chair

in a holy halo I never thought would be caught on film much

less described in its beautiful visual entirety in words.

The humor, the sadness, the EVERYTHING-ness and Ameri-

can-ness of these pictures! Tall thin cowboy rolling butt out-

side Madison Square Garden New York for rodeo season, sad,

spindly, unbelievable–Long shot of night road arrowing forlorn

into immensities and flat of impossible-to-believe America

in New Mexico under the prisoner’s moon–under the whang

what guitar star–Haggard old frowsy dames of Los Angeles

leaning peering out the right front window of Old Paw’s car on

a Sunday gawking and criticizing the explain Amerikay

to little children in the spattered back seat–tattooed guy

sleeping on grass in park in Cleveland, snoring dead to the

world on a Sunday afternoon with too many balloons and

sailboats–Hoboken in the winter, platform full of politicians

all ordinary looking till suddenly at the far end to the right

you see one of them pursing his lips in prayer politico (yaw-

ing probably) not soul cares–Old man standing resting under

American flag canopy in old busted car seat in fantastic Ven-

ice California backyard, I could sit in it and sketch 30,000

words (as a railroad brakeman I rode by such backyards lean-

ing out of the old steam pot) (empty tokay bottles in the palm

weeds)–Robert picks up two hitch hikers and lets them drive

the car, at night, and people look at their two faces look-

ing grimly onward into the night (“Visionary Indian angels

who were visionary Indian angels” says Allen Ginsberg) and

people say “Ooo how mean they look” but all they want to do

is arrow on down that road and get back to the sack–Rob-

ert’s here to tell us so–St. Petersburg Florida the retired old

codgers on a bench in the busy mainstreet leaning on their

canes and talking about social security and on incredible

I think Seminole half Negro woman pulling on her ciga-

rette with thoughts of her own, as pure a picture as the

nicest tenor solo in jazz . . . As American a picture–the

faces don’t editorialize or criticize or say anything but

“This is the way we are in real life and if you don’t like

it I don’t know anything about it ’cause I’m living my

own life my way and may god bless us all, mebbe” . . .

“if we deserve it” . . . Oi the lone woe of Lee Lucien, a bas-

keta pittykats . . .

What a poem that is, what poems can be written about

this book of pictures some day by some young new writer

high by candlelight bending over them describing every

gray mysterious detail, the gray film that caught the actual

pink juice of human kind. Wheter’t is the milk of human-

kind-ness, of human-kindess, Shakespeare mean, makes

no difference when you look at these pictures. Better than

a show. Madroad driving men ahead–the mad road, lonely,

leaning around the bend into the openings of space towards

the horizon Wasatch snows promised us the vision of the

west, spine heights at the world’s end, coast of blue Pacif-

ic starry night–nobone half-banana moons sloping in the

tangled night sky, the torments of great formations in the

mist, the huddled invisible insect in the car racing onward,

illuminate–The raw cut, the drag, the butte, the star, the

draw, the sunflower in the grass–orangebutted west lands

of Arcadia, forlorn sands of the isolate earth, dewy expo-

sures to infinity in black space, home of the rattlesnake and

the gopher–the level of the world, low and flat: the charg-

ing restless mute unvoiced road keening in a seizure of tar-

paulin power into the route, fabulous plots of landowners

in green unexpecteds, ditches by the side of the road, as

I look.

From here to Elko along the level of this pin parallel to

telephone poles I can see a bug playing in the hot sun–swush,

hitch yourself a ride beyond the fastest freight train, beat-

ing the smoke, find the thighs, spend the shiney, throw the

shroud, kiss the morning star in the morning glass–madroad

driving men ahead. Pencil traceries of our faintest wish in

the travel of the horizon merged, nosey cloud obfusks above

the streams of C.B.Q–serried Little Missouri rocks haunt the

badlands, harsh dry brown fields roll in the moonlight with

the shiny cow’s ass, telephone poles toothpick time, “dot-

ting immensity” the crazed voyageur of the lone automobile

presses forth his eager insignificance in the noseplates and

licenses into the vast promise of life. Drain your basins in

old Ohio and the Indian and the Illini plains, bring your Big

Muddy rivers thru Kansas and the mudlands, Yellowstone

in the frozen North, punch lake holes in Florida and L.A.,

raise your cities in the white plain, cast your mountains

up, bedawze the west, bedight the west with brave hedge-

row cliffs rising to Promethean heights and fame–plant your

prisons in the basic of the Utah moon–nudge Canadian grop-

ing lands that end in Arctic bays, purl your Mexican rib-

neck, America–we’re going home, going home. . .

TheAmericans

Excerpt by Jack Kerouac

The Americans

1959

First Grove Press

ROBERT

Funeral — St. Helena, South Carolina

Parade — Hoboken, New Jersey

Between 1974 and 1999 the late Raghubir Singh published

12 books of color photographs taken in various regions of India.

Atage58,hehadalreadyputtogetheroneofthemostproductiveand

best-documentedcareersinthehistoryofphotography.His13thbook,

published just before his untimely death last April, is a retrospective

selection, River of Colour: The India of Raghubir Singh, which has

alsobeenpresentedasanexhibition.Thevolumeincludesasomewhat

defensiveessaybySinghthatseekstojustifyhiscareerinthecontextof

Indianesthetics.TheexhibitionwasorganizedbytheArtInstituteof

Chicago,whereitwasseenlastspringafteropeningattheBonMarche,

Paris,in1998.

Singh’s books are thematized geographically, either by state

(Rajasthan, 1981; Kashmir, 1983; Kerala, 1987; Tamil Nadu,

1997) by city (Calcutta, 1975, and Calcutta, The Home and The

Street, 1988; Benares, 1986; Bombay, 1994) by river (The Gan-

ges, Sacred River of India, 1974, and The Ganges, 1992) or by

road (The Grand Trunk Road, 1995). Another selection, Kumbh

Mela (1981), portrays a massive Hindu pilgrimage. Yet Singh

resisted the notion that these are travel books. Interviewed by Max

Kozloff (Asian Art, Fall 1989), he noted, “I grew up in India. My

basic education has been in India, and I’m photographing them.

I mean, I would be out of my mind to see that as travel photography.

I would say my work is a response to Indian lives as I see them.” Yet

the issue of lived native experience is not so simple as that of nation-

ality. One could even question whether someone from Rajasthan isn’t

essentially a traveler in, say, Tamil Nadu, with its different language,

food and customs. Although Singh later disavowed any journalistic

intention, he began his career in the late ‘60s publishing conventional

documentary color photographs in National Geographic, Life, Stern

andtheNewYorkTimes.Hisitinerary,evenforarecentbooksuchas

TamilNadu,couldhavebeendevisedfromaguidebook,buthealways

usedtheregion’shistoricalandlegendarysitestoframecontemporary

experiences. And as personal as his photographs undoubtedly are,

Singh’s mise-en-scenes are nation-scaled and highly variable--unlike,

say,thevillage-universeonefindsinthewriterNarayan’swork.Singh

always insisted on complete editorial control of his books (except for

thedustjacket,buteventhereheallowednocropping).InIndia’sEng-

lish-language bookstores, however, his books are often sold alongside

thesouvenirbooks.

Singh’s career-long use of color, always uninhibited, may contrib-

ute to the present volume’s coffee-table aura. Although the art world

now accepts, or even mandates, color in contemporary photography,

a subliminal air of vulgarity persists when the color is as extravagant

as it is here. “In the Rajput courts of my native Rajasthan, neither art

nor life could be imagined without the brilliant plumage of a bird in

f light,” Singh begins, consciously evoking the exotic, in his introduc-

tory essay for the retrospective. Noting Western photography’s long-

time antipathy for strong color, he continues, “Color has never been

an unknown force in India.” Color makes Singh’s photographs much

toolavishtoseem“documentary”inthepurestsense,hisevidentpreoc-

cupation with street photography notwithstanding. At a March 1999

slide-talk at the International Center for Photography, New York,

Singh commented on an image of a Bombay slum dweller, “I realized

fairly early there was no contradiction between sadness or poverty,

andcolor.”

Singh began photographing while still a teenager, taking his

inspirationfromHenriCartier-Bresson’sIndianphotographs.Hehad

found a cheaply printed Indian edition of Beautiful Jaipur (1949) on

a family bookshelf. In 1966, when Cartier-Bresson revisited Jaipur,

Singh was introduced, and he then followed the photographer for

several days, observing him at work. Eventually, Singh visited him in

Paris, bringing his own first two books for appraisal. After leafing

through only a few pages, Cartier-Bresson pushed the books away.

“Iknewhehadnoloveforcolorphotography,”Singhwrites inhisret-

rospective’sintroduction.“Butthisattitude,andmyownfearoffailure,

mademeredothetwoworks.”

In one sense, the retrospective continued the revision. River of

Colour isorganizedthematicallyratherthanregionally.Singhalways

defendedthegeographicorganizationofhisbooks,sayingthatinIndia

cultural development is primarily a function of place. Compared to

theircounterparts intheproportionatelymoreurbanizedWest,most

Indians live close to the land and its creatures, as Singh frequently

madeevidentinhiswork.India’sdramaticseasonsofdroughtandmon-

soon can destroy everything a person owns. Singh’s first great group

of photographs (including Monsoon rains, Monghyr, Bihar, 1967, in

River of Colour) was of women in a rainstorm, huddling together in

a field. While decrying the Western obsession with death and alien-

ation,Singhinsistsrepeatedlyinhiswritingthatgeographyisfate,and

heevencondemnscertainunnamedcontemporaryIndianartists,along

withpostmodernismitself,forlosingthissenseofgeographicidentity

Rajasthan isoneofSingh’searliestbooksandhismostnostalgic.

Itrecallshishomestatewiththerosy,sunsetatmosphereandconcrete

detail of Vladimir Nabokov remembering his youth in imperial Rus-

sia. Catching the breeze, Hathod village, Jaipur, Rajasthan (1975) is

asmagicalasaKotahminiature, showinggirlsonaswinghighabove

fellowvillagers,waterbuffaloandtraditionalmudhouses.Otherpho-

tographs, more dispassionate, reveal Singh’s access to Rajput royalty.

Singhwasfromanupper-class,landholdingfamily,closetotheMaha-

rajah of Jaipur, that was effectively disinherited by the reforms after

independence. And like Nabokov, whose family was similarly fallen,

Singh displayed a complex mix of elite liberalism and disdainful con-

servatism. (Many later photographs are framed through an Ambas-

sador car window, an honest demarcator of a shift in socioeconomic

status.) This ambivalence is often felt, too, in Singh’s photographs

of Hindu subjects, especially in The Ganges and Kumbh Mela. He

wasn’t disrespectful, but he wasn’t in awe, either. In Sadhus bathe at

Sangam, Kumbh Mela, Prayag, Uttar Pradesh (1989), hordes of holy

menareshownrushing,nearlynaked,intoandoutofthecoldriverin

apurifyingritualofultimateastrologicalauspiciousness,occurringonly

onceevery12yearsandobservedbymillions.Thebathers’movements

areweirdlyfrozen,thetableaurecedinginicymist,sothattheoverall

effect is likesomethingoutofDante’s Inferno.Shooting in incredibly

daunting circumstances, Singh saw the strangeness of Hinduism, but

unlikeaforeigner,hesawitdespiteitsfamiliarity.

The Colors of India Excerpt by P.C. Smith

Art in America

March, 2000

Brant Publisher, Inc.

AladysituatedinanautomobileisthefocusofRaghubirSingh’s

photograph. Her garment’s colors, saturated shades of carmine and

crimson, can not be ignored. The bindi on her forehead compli-

mentshergarmentsbysharingthesamehue.Herpresence ismagni-

fied by the regal posture and the cold stare. Encapsulating the lady,

the automobile and two dangling white legs from above frame her

in a compact space below the horizon. The varied mixture of colors,

lines, and shapes creates a busy landscape filled with exotic people

and textiles. Behind the lady sits the bulk of the vehicle, a combi-

nation of grey sheets, people, and yellow hay. In the background,

people litter the horizon. Hard shadows follow the pedestrians in

the mid-ground. The plethora of activity creates an interesting

andlivelyphotograph.

ThesceneislocatedinIndia’sfifthlargeststate,UttarPradeshand

likely,duetoitstitle,depictsthepilgrimagetolargestgatheringinthe

world,KumbhMela(theUrnFestival)atPrayag.TheHindupilgrimage

is attended by millions of people. Because of the traditional bindi on

herforehead,theladyinthevehicleisverylikelyaHinduandoneofthe

pilgrims.Thebindidotrepresentsthethirdspiritualeye.Contrastingly,

the figures in the mid-ground don traditional native attire. Whether

or not the main characters of the photograph are pilgrims or simply

pedestrians,theyarealltravelingagainstthesunandtowardsthecamera

andtheviewergivingusafrontseatinthestreetsofUttarPradesh.

Singh’sphotographgivesusadirectmomentonthestreetsofUttar

Pradeshandthefacesarequitevisible.Thestareofthewomaninfront

is striking and direct. Because of the way the woman is framed, she

almostseemstobeinherownworldwhilealltheactivityaroundher

passes.Hanginglegsfromuptopsurroundherupperbody,muchlike

a picture of somebody posing in front of Lincoln’s massive white legs

at the Lincoln memorial center. Visually, the photography is busy,

butthereisnodoubtwheretofocus.Thewomanstealstheattention

with her look, her clothing, and her posture. She is the photograph.

Themostappealingaspectofthephotographisthewaythewomanis

framed. Unlike Robert Frank’s photograph, Singh’s is a frozen snap-

shot of busyness. The angle of the moving car frames the woman in

aawkwardpositionbetweenasetofman’slegs.Exceptforthewoman,

thephotographcompletelyunawarethatithasanaudience.Hereyes

Essay by Leon Hong, Los Angeles 2006 Raghubir Singh, a pioneer

in color photograph, is

most famous for depictions

of his native country.

Singh was born in Jaipur,

India in 1942 and died

in New York in 1999.

Pilgrim. Uttar Pradesh, 1989

cutstowardstheviewer.Remarkably,Singhmanagestoleadtheviewer

through a very busy picture and directly towards the focal point.

Additionally, the predominately gray colors of the photograph

combinedwiththeintensesaturationofthewoman’sclothinggivesit

aqualityFrank’sphotographlacks.

A2

Singh.the woman steals the attention

RAGHUBIR

Pavementmirrorshop,Howrah,1991

BarberandgoddessKali,1987