The Visual Diaries

Frank’s final artist books serve as a touchstone for his later life and career

The Visual Diaries presents, for the first time together, the six introspective volumes that are most critical to Robert Frank’s late bookmaking practice. Originally published between 2010 and 2017, the books imaginatively combine iconic photos from Frank’s early career with the more private pictures he made in later life. Black-and-white photos taken on 35mm film, including some from The Americans, mix with contemporary Polaroids. Quiet still lifes, contemplative landscapes and urban scenes, self-portraits, and spontaneous endearing shots of friends, colleagues and his wife, June Leaf, show the life he lived in their homes on Bleecker Street in New York and in Mabou, Nova Scotia. With these images Frank created seemingly casual layouts that recall the look and spirit of a private album or scrapbook and comment on memory and the passage of time. Factual captions and short, sometimes cryptic texts are scattered throughout the books. Frank’s highly personal approach to these books suggests how the past tempered his present and shows how his life was not just documented but shaped by bookmaking. Until his death in 2019, Robert Frank remained as innovative and ambitious as ever; Visual Diaries is the primary expression of his steadfast artistic curiosity.