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Robert Frost

Robert Frost
Artist
Doris Ulmann, 29 May 1882 - 28 Aug 1934
Sitter
Robert Lee Frost, 26 Mar 1874 - 29 Jan 1963
Date
1929
Type
Photograph
Medium
Platinum print
Dimensions
Image/Sheet: 20.8 × 15.7 cm (8 3/16 × 6 3/16")
Mount: 35.5 × 28.2 cm (14 × 11 1/8")
Mat (Verified): 45.7 × 35.6 cm (18 × 14")
Topic
Interior
Costume\Dress Accessory\Neckwear\Tie\Necktie
Robert Lee Frost: Male
Robert Lee Frost: Education and Scholarship\Educator\Lecturer
Robert Lee Frost: Education and Scholarship\Educator\Professor\University
Robert Lee Frost: Literature\Writer\Poet
Robert Lee Frost: Education and Scholarship\Educator\Teacher
Robert Lee Frost: Pulitzer Prize
Robert Lee Frost: Congressional Gold Medal
Portrait
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Restrictions & Rights
CC0
Object number
NPG.97.112
Exhibition Label
Born San Francisco, California
Poet Robert Frost’s accessible writing style was often praised during his lengthy, prize-winning career. Aware that his modernist contemporaries seemed unapproachable, Frost decided that if he was going to make a living as a poet, he had to write “for all sorts and kinds” of readers. The New England-based “gentle farmer-poet” reached millions and continues to do so. His works, especially the often-quoted and sometimes misinterpreted “The Road Not Taken” (1915), remain part of our cultural landscape.
Frost’s friend, professor of English Sidney Cox, included a variant of this photograph by Doris Ulmann in the 1929 memoir Robert Frost, Original “Ordinary Man.” Ulmann photographed Frost in New York City, where she planned to have the poet pose at a table. Since he never worked that way, Frost requested a writing board instead. In the end, Ulmann later recalled, the session was a success.
Nacido en San Francisco, California
El estilo accesible del poeta Robert Frost fue muy elogiado durante su larga y galardonada carrera. Consciente de que sus contemporáneos modernistas parecían incomprensibles, Frost decidió que, si iba a ganarse la vida como poeta, tenía que escribir “para todo tipo” de lector. El “noble agricultor-poeta” radicado en Nueva Inglaterra conmovió, y aún conmueve, a millones de personas. Su obra, sobre todo el muy citado y a veces malinterpretado “El camino que no tomé” (1915), sigue siendo parte de nuestro panorama cultural.
El profesor de inglés Sidney Cox, amigo de Frost, incluyó una variante de esta fotografía de Doris Ulmann en las memorias de 1929 Robert Frost, un original “hombre común”. Ulmann retrató a Frost en Nueva York, donde había planeado que el poeta posara sentado ante una mesa. Frost nunca trabajaba así, y pidió una tabla para escribir. La sesión, según recordó Ulmann, fue un éxito.
Data Source
National Portrait Gallery
Location
Currently not on view