The Americans
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Product Description
In 1958, the first edition of Robert Frank’s The Americans was published in Paris. Les Américains contained Frank’s 83 photographs in the same sequence as all subsequent editions, with the image on the right hand page, but juxtaposed with past 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 copious languages, with a variety of take in designs, and even in a range of sizes. It is the most legendary photography book ever published, and it changed the face of the medium forever.
Robert Frank discussed with his publisher, Gerhard Steidl, the thought 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 Göttingen, Germany, where Steidl is based.
In July 2007, Frank visited Göttingen. A new format for the book was worked out and new lettering selected. A new take in 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.Amazon.com Review
Armed with a camera and a fresh cache of film and bankrolled by a Guggenheim Foundation grant, Robert Frank crisscrossed the United States during 1955 and 1956. The photographs he brought back form a portrait of the country at the time and hint at its future. He saw the hope of the future in the faces of a couple at city hall in Reno, Nevada, and the despair of the present in a grimy roofscape. He saw the roiling racial tension, glamour, and beauty, and, perhaps because Frank himself was on the road, he was particularly attuned to Americans’ like for cars. Funeral-goers lean against a shiny sedan, lovers kiss on a beach blanket in front of their parked car, young boys land in the back seat at a drive-in movie. A sports car under a drop cloth is framed by two California palm trees; on the next page, a blanket is draped over a car manufacturing accident victim’s body in Arizona.
Robert Frank’s Americans reappear 40 years after they were initially published in this exquisite volume by Scalo. Each photograph (there are more than 80 of them) stands alone on a page, while the caption information is included at the back of the book, allowing viewers an unfettered look at the images. Jack Kerouac’s original introduction, commissioned when the photographer showed the writer his work while sitting on a sidewalk one night outside of a party, provides the only accompanying text. Kerouac’s words add narrative dimension to Frank’s imagery while in turn the photographs themselves perfectly illustrate the writer’s own work.
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I don’t know why this book is printed in Switzerland, but hey!, still a GREAT book. I bought it because Bruce Springsteen was inspired by Robert Frank in order to get his design for Nebraska. There are a couple of pictures or three that are very close to the Springsteen imaginery.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I’m not as impressed with this book as most critics are. Frank traveled around the U.S. and photographed pretty much what he was looking for: visual proof that Americans and their culture are crass, materialist, full of prejudice, and brassy.
This view has been a commonplace conceit of European artists and intellectuals, and it started even before the colonies had united to become the United States. It was a message that was sure to win him applause from Europeans and also from that part of the American intelligentsia who take European judgements as final.
I reflect Frank’s photos are highly overrated and took small insight or understanding to make. They reflect mostly a predictable European viewpoint and show nearly no understanding of what this country and its people are really about.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
I bought this much heralded photo collection book after reading the review in Newsweek. Maybe I’m not artsy-sophisticated enough to know the supposed power and humanness or whatever behind these photos. I just don’t get them. For a much better look at people in all-purpose, look at the book The Life of Man, or even a book of Norman Rockwell paintings. Persons books will give you a better thought of life from the 1920’s to the 1970’s, and the people. The only photo that did stand out to me was the take in photo of the bus. It’s painful.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Captured moments of Amercian Life, regularly shown here with an American flag in the photo. These images in this book described a visual artist who is making photos by shifting angles, waiting for the right moment, using light in a different way. Its tough to clarify this book additional than to say that it was edited pretty well.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
There are three types of photographers.
The first are with goals of one day selling out to a magazine or whomever has a wallet.
The second are the hobbyists who prance around the city with their Leicas.
The third is Robert Frank. Thank you for sharing your pictures.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5