SYDNEY, N.S. — “Always keep your eyes open.”
It was that advice that famed art photographer Robert Frank gave to fellow photographer Bob Martin of Port Hood, who remembered Frank on Tuesday as a kind, “wonderful man.”
Reached in Calgary where he was visiting family, Martin remembers when Frank used to visit his photography studio in Port Hawkesbury in the 1990s.Frank died in Cape Breton on Monday at the Inverness Hospital. Although born in Switzerland and known for his work in the United States, Frank, 94, had spent his summers in Mabou since 1971.
“He had a Hasselblad and I’d develop his film,” Martin said. “He would tell me these stories while his wife June would run errands.
“He was a very private man who had a lot of wisdom.”
Frank was known to be reclusive, declining most requests for interviews and appearances. He was best known for his photography book, “The Americans,” first published in 1958. It is a collection of hauntingly stark vignettes of life in the U.S. that show the realities, rather than the optimism, of that time period and is now considered a seminal work in American photography.
He’s also known for his films, most notably a 1972 documentary of the Rolling Stones which showed the band on tour engaging in drug use and group sex and which the courts had largely prevented from being shown. Frank’s photography appeared on the cover of their album, “Exile On Main St.”
Frank also made, with Rudy Wurlitzer, the film “Candy Mountain” about a musician who comes from New York to Cape Breton seeking an elusive guitar maker. Frank has said that film has reflected his own life’s journey from New York City to Nova Scotia.
Frank is survived by his wife June Leaf, a well-known artist. He was predeceased by a daughter and a son.
Martin said he enjoyed meeting Frank and learning from him.
“He was a man of few words so when he said something, you respected it.”
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