The Americans
from: Steidl/National Gallery of Art, Washington
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Amazon.com Review:
Armed with a camera and a fresh cache of film and bankrolledby a Guggenheim Foundation grant, Robert Frank crisscrossed the UnitedStates during 1955 and 1956. The photographs he brought back form aportrait of the country at the time and hint at its future. He saw thehope 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 sawthe roiling racial tension, glamour, and beauty, and, perhaps becauseFrank himself was on the road, he was particularly attuned toAmericans' love for cars. Funeral-goers lean against a shiny sedan,lovers kiss on a beach blanket in front of their parked car, youngboys perch in the back seat at a drive-in movie. A sports car under adrop cloth is framed by two California palm trees; on the next page, ablanket is draped over a car accident victim's body in Arizona.
Robert Frank's Americans reappear 40 years after they were initiallypublished in this exquisite volume by Scalo. Each photograph (thereare more than 80 of them) stands alone on a page, while the captioninformation is included at the back of the book, allowing viewers anunfettered look at the images. JackKerouac's original introduction, commissioned when thephotographer showed the writer his work while sitting on a sidewalkone night outside of a party, provides the only accompanyingtext. Kerouac's words add narrative dimension to Frank's imagery whilein turn the photographs themselves perfectly illustrate the writer'sown work.
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 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 Göttingen, Germany, where Steidl is based.
In July 2007, Frank visited Göttingen. 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.
Armed with a camera and a fresh cache of film and bankrolledby a Guggenheim Foundation grant, Robert Frank crisscrossed the UnitedStates during 1955 and 1956. The photographs he brought back form aportrait of the country at the time and hint at its future. He saw thehope 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 sawthe roiling racial tension, glamour, and beauty, and, perhaps becauseFrank himself was on the road, he was particularly attuned toAmericans' love for cars. Funeral-goers lean against a shiny sedan,lovers kiss on a beach blanket in front of their parked car, youngboys perch in the back seat at a drive-in movie. A sports car under adrop cloth is framed by two California palm trees; on the next page, ablanket is draped over a car accident victim's body in Arizona.
Robert Frank's Americans reappear 40 years after they were initiallypublished in this exquisite volume by Scalo. Each photograph (thereare more than 80 of them) stands alone on a page, while the captioninformation is included at the back of the book, allowing viewers anunfettered look at the images. JackKerouac's original introduction, commissioned when thephotographer showed the writer his work while sitting on a sidewalkone night outside of a party, provides the only accompanyingtext. Kerouac's words add narrative dimension to Frank's imagery whilein turn the photographs themselves perfectly illustrate the writer'sown work.
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 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 Göttingen, Germany, where Steidl is based.
In July 2007, Frank visited Göttingen. 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.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- Inspiring
Robert Frank changed the world of photography with this collection of work. I think every young photographer should own and study this book.
Rating: 
- Just a Suggestion:
If you want to understand the USA of today, 2009, there's no better time and place to start than with America in the mid 1950s, when the "post-war-cold-war-post-cold-war" culture first took shape, at the threshold of: rock and roll and youth culture; clvil rights, the end of Jim Crow, 'crossover' culture; global immigration, the culture of diversity; college as a normal expectation for lower-middle class kids; the Beat Generation, Hippies, the turn-on-drop-out culture; two kids, two income families, ... Read More
Rating: - Looking In
In 1955 - 1956, Robert Frank (b. 1924), an American photographer born in Switzerland, restlessly crossed the United States several times by car to photograph people and places as he found them. He gradually culled through thousands of photographs to select 83 images for his book, "The Americans" published initially in Paris in 1958 and in the United States in 1959 by Grove Press. In its initial publication, "The Americans" sold only 600 copies and received negative reviews.Its stature has grown with ... Read More
Rating: - Worth the Money
The controversy surrounding this book is the perfectly natural - even compelled - result of the fact that 83 pictures cannot begin to represent the absolute infinite number of perspectives on life in the United States - or, the world, for that matter.Indeed, that it is titled "The Americans," with the intimation that it is a definitive photographic explication of the topic, demands the debate.Nevertheless, the pictures are deeply evocative and I am so pleased to have it in my library.
One ... Read More
Rating: - Pictures that bring wry smiles
I heard a bit about this terrific collection of Robert Frank photos on NPR, commemorating the 50th anniversary of its publication in the US. The collection is wonderful, with many shots of a side of 1950s America not usually seen by the public. Robert Frank lugged his camera to black funerals, dirty city streets and urban rooftops to capture the unglamorous -- yet very real -- people who lived there. Some of his images are startling and beautiful. A newsstand's stack of displayed magazines melds into the stacked ... Read More
- InspiringRobert Frank changed the world of photography with this collection of work. I think every young photographer should own and study this book.
- Just a Suggestion:If you want to understand the USA of today, 2009, there's no better time and place to start than with America in the mid 1950s, when the "post-war-cold-war-post-cold-war" culture first took shape, at the threshold of: rock and roll and youth culture; clvil rights, the end of Jim Crow, 'crossover' culture; global immigration, the culture of diversity; college as a normal expectation for lower-middle class kids; the Beat Generation, Hippies, the turn-on-drop-out culture; two kids, two income families, ... Read More
- Looking InIn 1955 - 1956, Robert Frank (b. 1924), an American photographer born in Switzerland, restlessly crossed the United States several times by car to photograph people and places as he found them. He gradually culled through thousands of photographs to select 83 images for his book, "The Americans" published initially in Paris in 1958 and in the United States in 1959 by Grove Press. In its initial publication, "The Americans" sold only 600 copies and received negative reviews.Its stature has grown with ... Read More
- Worth the MoneyThe controversy surrounding this book is the perfectly natural - even compelled - result of the fact that 83 pictures cannot begin to represent the absolute infinite number of perspectives on life in the United States - or, the world, for that matter.Indeed, that it is titled "The Americans," with the intimation that it is a definitive photographic explication of the topic, demands the debate.Nevertheless, the pictures are deeply evocative and I am so pleased to have it in my library.
One ... Read More
- Pictures that bring wry smilesI heard a bit about this terrific collection of Robert Frank photos on NPR, commemorating the 50th anniversary of its publication in the US. The collection is wonderful, with many shots of a side of 1950s America not usually seen by the public. Robert Frank lugged his camera to black funerals, dirty city streets and urban rooftops to capture the unglamorous -- yet very real -- people who lived there. Some of his images are startling and beautiful. A newsstand's stack of displayed magazines melds into the stacked ... Read More
