Until January 7, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) is hosting Across America, Photographs by Robert Frank & Todd Webb, 1955, an exhibition bringing together Todd Webb and Robert Frank.
The New York Times presents it this way:
While Robert Frank was driving across the United States, taking the photos later published as “The Americans,” Todd Webb was covering the same terrain using bicycle, boat and feet. Both were funded by Guggenheim fellowships, but this is the first time their photographs have been shown together.
Robert Frank’s “The Americans” is rightly regarded as the greatest sequence of photographs ever taken on a road trip. Frank, who was Swiss, funded his famous 1955 travels with a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. That same year, another photographer, Todd Webb, used a Guggenheim to make a similar trip. Unlike Frank, whose photographs can function as odes to the American automobile, Webb repudiated cars. Wanting to capture both “vanishing Americana, and the way of life that was taking its place,” he chose instead to walk, bike and boat across the country. This exhibition brings the two projects together.
Across America, Photographs by Robert Frank & Todd Webb, 1955
October 8, 2023 – January 7, 2024
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
1001 Bissonnet St.
Houston, TX 77005
www.mfah.org
