PARIS 1949-1952

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Frank spent much of his time in Europe. It was during this period that he met and married his first wife Mary Lockspeiser in New York. Their son Pablo was born in 1951. Frank looked back on these years as the end of his apprenticeship, and the beginning of his mature development as a photographer: 'I spent a lot of time and effort getting the picture that meant a lot to me onto a piece of paper. That's when I started to know what I could do.'

The photographs shown here were taken in Paris. 'I was drawn to the very ordinary life in the streets and parks of Paris. Paris was very romantic and I was very romantic', he said. He chose to represent this romanticism by photographing flowers. As well as the numerous flower stalls throughout the city, Frank shows the role of flowers in the lives of the people, from the single tulip clutched by a lover to the ceremonial wreaths commemorating the dead on Armistice Day.