American Witness: The Art and Life of Robert Frank

Our tiny art shelves were suddenly full this year of biographies of major American photographers: Vivian Maier, Richard Avedon, Eugene Smith, Diane Arbus, and this one, which I picked up almost on a whim and fell easily into. Perhaps that's in keeping with its subject, who has trusted intuition and chance through his ninety-plus years and has turned away, again and again, from the boredom of mastery, even after his landmark 1958 photobook, The Americans. Smith's account of Frank's life is breezy rather than exhaustively authoritative, but it's a knowledgeable and enjoyable introduction to his work, and a reminder of his restless, discontented curiosity. At the very least, it is likely to make you want to go take pictures, even if Frank himself often turned away from the art he's best known for.