Robert Frank, spread from "Mary’s Book" (detail), 1949. Illustrated book with gelatin silver prints. Gift of the Howard Greenberg Gallery. © The June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation.
TITLE_NAME :
12/21/2024 - 06/22/2025

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 
465 Huntington Avenue 
 
MA 02115 Boston

www.mfa.org/exhibition/robert-frank-marys-book 

 
Celebrating the centennial of photographer Robert Frank’s (1924–2019) birth, this exhibition takes an in-depth look at the personal scrapbook of photographs Frank made for Mary Lockspeiser, the woman who became his first wife, titled Mary’s Book. Created in 1949, the one-of-a-kind, handmade book represents a formative moment in Frank’s career, when he experimented with juxtaposing images and text. Seventy-four small photographs and their accompanying inscriptions reveal Frank’s appreciation for the poetic resonance of objects and spaces. Many of the photographs are devoid of people, although a human presence is felt everywhere, such as pages where Frank muses on the chairs and streets of Paris with messages interspersed for Mary. The book is a reflection on solitary contemplation that reads like a lyrical poem and compelling personal photographic sequence.