The Americans. Text by Jack Kerouac. Photographs by Robert Frank. An Aperture Book/The Museum of Modern Art Edition, New York, 1968. Second American edition; First Aperture edition, revised and enlarged. Oblong octavo. Stiff photo-illustrated wrappers. vi + captioned halftone plates.
This revised and enlarged edition is closer to the same physical size as the original American and French editions. Subsequent editions were significantly larger. It also contains an additional section on Frank's first four films. "The filmstrips on the following pages, included as a new section in this edition, represent for me the continuation of my work."--Robert Frank. Kerouac's introduction sums up Robert Frank's fifties photographs best: "That crazy feeling in America when the sun is hot on the streets and music comes out of the jukebox or from a nearby funeral, that's what Robert Frank has captured in these tremendous photographs taken as he traveled on the road around practically forty-eight states in an old used car (on Guggenheim Fellowship) and with the agility, mystery, genius, sadness and strange secrecy of a shadow photographed scenes that have never been seen before on film. For this he will definitely be hailed as a great artist in his field." It is interesting that a Swiss-born U.S. citizen was able to strike such a sensitive cultural nerve and popularize American street photography.
A near fine copy, with most of the publisher's label still affixed to the back cover. A few soft creases are apparent on front cover and front endpaper; otherwise a tight, crisp copy. |
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