Programme below for links to individual speakers.

'Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice, with that little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of the world.'
- Jack Kerouac

Was The Americans the most influential book of photographs published in the last fifty years? Granted a Guggenheim fellowship, Robert Frank set out to document everyday America. The resulting pictures broke all conventions of photography and showed the artist's clear ambivalence towards his adopted country. Seen by many as an attack on the American way of life, the book nonetheless spawned droves of young photographers to drive second hand cars across the United States, exposing rolls of film at gas stations and roadside bars.

This event brings together Robert Delpire, original publisher of The Americans; Martin Gasser, curator at the Swiss Foundation for Photography; David Brittain, former editor of Creative Camera; Liz Jobey associate editor of Granta magazine; and artists Susan Meiselas and Stephen Shore, to discuss the enduring impact of Frank's magnum opus.

Symposia Programme

Session 1 10:30 - 13:15

10:30 - 10:40	Welcome – Vincente Todoli, Director of Tate Modern and Curator of Robert Frank: Story Lines
10:40 - 11:30	Introduction by David Campany
11.30 - 12:00	Martin Gasser
12:00 - 12:30	David Brittain
12:30 - 13:15	Discussion chaired by David Campany
Session 2 15.00 - 16.45
15:00 - 16:45	Introduction by Charlotte Cotton
15:10 - 15:50	Stephen Shore
15:50 - 16:30	Susan Meiselas
16:30 - 16:45	Liz Jobey
15:45 - 17:05	Discussion chaired by Charlotte Cotton
In conjunction with the Robert Frank: Story Lines exhibition at Tate Modern.