{"data":{"id":"10955","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":10955,"topgoose_id":13548,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":10955,"title":"Detroit, River Rouge Plant","display_artist_text":"Robert Frank","display_date":"1955","accession_number":"96.146","dimensions":"Sheet: 15 7/8 × 19 13/16 in. (40.3 × 50.3 cm)\r\nImage: 14 1/16 × 18 3/4 in. (35.7 × 47.6 cm)","medium":"Gelatin silver print","department":"collection","classification":"Photographs","credit_line":"Gift of the artist","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eRobert Frank, \u003cem\u003eDetroit, River Rouge Plant\u003c/em\u003e, 1955. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 15 7/8 × 19 13/16 in. (40.3 × 50.3 cm)\r\nImage: 14 1/16 × 18 3/4 in. (35.7 × 47.6 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of the artist 96.146. © Robert Frank, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDetroit, River Rouge Plant\u003c/i\u003e is one of hundreds of images taken during a cross-country road trip on which Robert Frank embarked in 1955 and which culminated in his landmark book, \u003ci\u003eThe Americans\u003c/i\u003e (1959). The project was funded by a Guggenheim Fellowship for which he created an “observation and record of what one naturalized American finds to see in the United States.” After stops in Pennsylvania and Ohio, Frank arrived in Michigan, where he received permission to shoot inside the Ford Motor Company’s massive River Rouge Plant near Detroit. Unlike his photographs of the workers inside the factory—and unlike many of the images in \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eAmericans\u003c/i\u003e, which capture transience and loneliness with an unromantic realism—\u003ci\u003eDetroit River Rouge Plant\u003c/i\u003e is preternaturally still, even serene. Two rows of gleaming cars, lined up near a soaring canopy of steel beams, suggest the pristine order and efficiency of American industry. With their various contours, grillwork, and tailfins, they take on a biomorphic quality, seeming to possess individual personalities.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"Rows of vintage cars parked in an industrial lot next to large conveyor structures.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T17:13:47.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:00:53.825-05:00","images":[{"id":101777,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/10955/96_146_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"3897","type":"artist"}]}}}}