Last night as I was falling asleep, I was thinking about the list of photographers who contributed to the above San Francisco book. And what their photos might be of and how they were curated.
A few names stood out, Dorothea Lange, Robert Frank, Minor White, Garry Winogrand, Fred Herzog, Ansel Adams, and Jim Marshall. That covers a pretty wide swath over a large period of time. And makes me want to look through that book even more.
As she was a documentary photographer, I suspect Lange’s photos cover the forced “relocation” (that’s such a pleasant word) of Japanese-Americans living in what’s known as SF’s Fillmore district to the Tanforan horse stables in San Bruno, and then off to various prisons around the Western US, such as Manzanar in California’s Sierra foothills. Overall, FDR’s order caused the imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans, of which 60,000 were United States citizens, and obviously denied due process afforded under the Constitution.
I’m guessing Robert Frank’s SF photo might be of an African American man and a white women relaxing together in a SF park, one of the photos he made for The Americans, a photo book covering the US during troubling/turbulent times in the 1950s. As a Swiss citizen and outsider to the US, he got it right.
I would LOVE to meet this man, he's by far my biggest inspiration and I know at his age he doesn't get out much. If you hear of any other appearances please let me know. I'm also tempted to contact that store directly and ask them if they know of anything else coming up.
datebook.sfchronicle.com
www.leicastoresf.com
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