Frank’s restless, gritty, slightly melancholic vision had matured by 1953, when he left the safety and predictability of his native Switzerland and settled in New York. He is best known for his body of work The Americans (1958–59): a vision of the United States that was purposely, provocatively out of sync with the insistent optimism that characterized Americans’ postwar sense of self. After the publication of The Americans, Frank dedicated himself to filmmaking for more than a decade.

In 1973, Frank moved to Mabou, Nova Scotia, where he began again making still photographs, but ones that expressed a more personal, filmic sensibility. Without allegiance to any particular process, format, or method, he combined and occasionally rephotographed Polaroids, 35mm negatives, collage, photomontage, stenciling, and handwriting. The decision to reveal so much personal history—from the death of his daughter Andrea to his own hospitalization—required a physical parallel in the finished objects, which are as raw and unpredictable as life itself.