Yom Kippur, East River, New York City

Swiss-born Robert Frank made some of the most influential contributions to twentieth-century American photography with his candid, unvarnished images of everyday citizens. Frank worked as a commercial photographer at the outset of his career, taking photographs for magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and Life. After receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955, he spent the next two years driving across the United States and capturing what he saw as naturalized American culture. A selection of these photos were published in his 1957 photo book, The Americans, and offered a stark contrast to the prevailing image of an idealized postwar America. In 1959, Frank began exploring avant-garde filmmaking and continued to work in both film and photography.