America and Other Myths

Robert Franks and Todd Webbs parallel 1955 projects to photograph America are considered in the context of mid-twentieth-century American culture In 1955 two photographers were awarded grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation to embark on trips across the United States. Robert Frank (19242019) drove coast to coast, photographing the highways, bars, and people that formed the basis for his widely admired publication The Americans (1958). Todd Webb (19052000) walked across the country, searching for vanishing Americana and what is taking its place. Unaware of each others work, the photographers produced strikingly similar images of the highway, parades, and dim, smoky barrooms. Yet while Franks grainy, off-kilter style revealed many inequities of American life, Webbs carefully composed images embraced clear detail and celebrated the individual oddities of Americans and their locales. This revelatory book is the first to publish Webbs 1955 photographs and connects these parallel projects for the first time. More than one hundred images accompany text illuminating Franks and Webbs different perspectives and approaches to similar subjects and places; the difference in reception of Franks iconic work and Webbs relatively unknown series; and the place of the road trip in shaping American identity at midcentury. Published in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Exhibition Schedule: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (October 8, 2023January 7, 2024) Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts (February 10July 30, 2024) Brandywine Museum of Art, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania (February 8May 4, 2025)