An artist-historian, Frank made a significant contribution to our understanding of DC’s past with more than 80 paintings, almost ½ of his oeuvre, dedicated to his city. The fifth-generation Washingtonian painted both his DC of the present, while also reimagining a forgotten DC past as a bustling present on canvas.
Frank researched historical photographica, letters and ephemera, (and sometimes chipped paint off old structures). He then synthesized these dusty records and transformed them into atmospheric life on canvas, capturing the essence of history as it unfolded and gifting us with a truly unique time-traveling experience of DC. In Frank’s paintings, you might come across
1860s Union soldiers relaxing on what is now Roosevelt Island, or a
sweeping aerial view from the unfinished Washington Monument in 1884 overlooking Foggy Bottom and Georgetown, or a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue celebrating the
end of the Civil War or the inauguration of FDR.
You might also come across Frank. With droll humor, Frank liked to paint himself into history as a soldier, parade reveler, or a casual gentleman in 1900 walking across F Street in front of the patent attorneys’ office building, which would one day house his studio. Interestingly, Frank’s paintings of his contemporary DC of the 1970s—2000s, his portrayals of his favorite places from
Montrose Park to the
Potomac River, to his F Street studio, are now historical documents of the city’s past. His epic,
5-panel polyptych of 9th Street, NW (1980) pits the “new” mammoth FBI Building against the now long-gone parking lots and row of brightly-colored strip clubs. (Psst, see if you can spot Frank.)