Robert Frank

SIGNED Robert Frank

Jack Kerouac

Zurich. Scalo. Third scalo edition. 1998. The first Scalo edition was issued in 1993. Hardcover with the dust jacket. SIGNED by Robert Frank on the title page. Wonderful b/w photographs of American life across the country. Robert Frank captures the culture and environment of rural and urban America. Introduced by Jack Kerouac. Very good in a very good plus dust jacket.

This landmark collection from Robert Frank inspired artists from Nan Golden to Lee Friedlander. Robert Frank's plaintive black and white images captured the stark sense of aimlessness that undercut the seemingly upward boom of the 1950’s. "That crazy feeling in America, when the sun is hot on the streets and the music comes out of the jukebox or from a nearby funeral," Jack Kerouac wrote in the introduction. Life was not the same idyllic suburban dream for everyone. Times were hard and people were afraid; the cold war was reaching its peak level, the civil rights movement was just beginning, and many had not recovered from the hardships of World War II. Robert Frank sensed this and set out across the country, searching for the images that would tell the truth to a culture who seemed to have convinced themselves that the hardest part was behind them.

Jack Kerouac's preface to the original American edition lauded Frank's ability to suck 'a sad poem right out of America onto film,' and Kerouac ranked Frank not among other photographers but 'among the tragic poets of the world. In 1958, the first edition of Robert Frank’s The Americans was published in Paris. Les Americains contained Robert Frank’s 83 photographs in the same sequence as all subsequent editions, with the image on the right hand page, but juxtaposed with historical texts about American society and politics, gathered by Alain Bosquet. The following year, in the first American edition, the French texts were removed and an introduction by Jack Kerouac was added. Over the subsequent 50 years, The Americans has been republished in many editions, in numerous languages, with a variety of cover designs, and even in a range of sizes. It is the most famous photography book ever published, and it changed the face of the medium forever.

The Scalo hardcover edition has black cloth with white lettering on the spine. The dust jacket is also black with white lettering and an image of an American flag on the front. 

Hardcover in dust jacket. Boards are clean and bright with minimal wear. Ding to top edge front board. Ding to side edge rear board. Internally, clean and crisp. Handled with great care. The dust jacket is complete with several light scratches visible in the light. Ding to the rear DJ fold corresponding to the same blemish on the edge. The DJ back cover has several scuff marks from sliding the book in and out of the shelf. Not price clipped. Internally, tanning to page edges. Nice tight binding. A classic book.

Scarce SIGNED copy.