Robert Frank
Jack Kerouac
The Americans SIGNED Robert Frank First Edition First Print Steidl Edition 2008 |
Germany. Steidl. 2008. First Steidl edition and FIRST printing of the edition. Hardcover. With the dust jacket. The Americans. Photographs by Robert Frank. Introduction by Jack Kerouac.
"...paved the way for three decades of photographs exploring the personal poetics of lived experience. Many memorable photobooks have been derived from this mass of material. None has been more memorable, more influential, nor more fully realized than Franks's masterpiece."--Parr and Badger, The Photobook: A History, Vol. 1
"It was Frank's The Americans that made the photographic book into an artform in its own right. Frank was following a lead set by Morris' book [The Inhabitants] and, especially, by Evans' American Photographs, both of which are designed to let pictures play off each other in a way that controls and reinforces their effect on the viewer. Even Klein's
Wonderful
b/w photographs of American life across the country. Robert Frank
captures the culture and environment of rural and urban America.
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. "It would be a mistake, however,
to call Frank a documentary photographer," Malcom Jones notes in a
recent Newsweek article commemorating the 50th anniversary of the book's
release. "There was nothing objective about his pictures. 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. Robert
Frank discussed with his publisher, Gerhard Steidl, the idea of
producing a new edition using modern scanning and the finest tritone
printing. The starting point was to bring original prints from New York to Gottingen, Germany, where Steidl is based. In July 2007, Frank visited Gottingen.
A new format for the book was worked out and new typography selected. A
new cover was designed and Frank chose the book cloth, foil for
embossing, and the endpaper. Most significantly, as he has done for
every edition of The Americans, Frank changed the cropping of many of
the photographs, usually including more information. Two images were
changed completely from the original 1958 and 1959 editions. This book
is the 50th anniversary version of Robert Frank’s classic. Hardcover, 8.25 x 7.25 inches. 180 pages. 83 tritone. From Publishers Weekly
In
this 50th anniversary reissue, celebrated photographer Frank maintains
the format (left page: brief caption, right page: photo) and
introduction (Jack Kerouac: "with the agility, mystery, genius, sadness
and strange secrecy of a shadow Frank photographed scenes that have
never been seen before on film"), the images themselves have been
re-scanned, re-cropped by Frank and, in two cases, changed. Frank's
images, taken all across the country, leave the viewer with a solemn
impression of American life. From funerals to drug store cafeterias to
parks, Frank recorded every shade of everyday life he encountered: the
lower and upper classes, the living and dead, the hopeful and destitute,
all the while experimenting with angle, focus and grain to increase
impact. Preceding an exhibition that will tour U.S. galleries in 2009,
this volume will no doubt introduce new generations to Frank's
inimitable record of daily life fifty years ago. Kerouac says,
fittingly, that "after seeing these pictures you end up finally not
knowing any more whether a jukebox is sadder than a coffin"; those who
don't comprehend Kerouac's comment have yet to experience this classic
collection. 83 tritone plates.
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A very good plus copy of this beautifully reproduced Frank monograph in a very good dust jacket. Minimal wear to the boards. Internally, pristine. Handled with great care. Clean and very bright. The dust jacket has a small thin crease to the top edge DJ front cover and a minuscule tear to the top edge. Minor soiling. The Text in English. A spectacular copy of this later edition of Frank's seminal collection. Beautifully printed. Proud to own.
SIGNED by Robert Frank. Very scarce.
A true find.