The Americans. Photographs by Robert Frank. Introduction by Jack Kerouac. Grove Press, New York, 1959. 180 pp. Small quarto. First U.S. edition. Clotbound in photo-illustrated dust jacket. 83 gravure reproductions. Acetate protector. Presented in custom-made clamshell case.
Recently sold at auction for $13,475 (including buyer's premium)!
"...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."--Martin Parr and Gerry 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 New York book displays this tendency. But Frank's goes much further, creating a denser, richer, deeper structure of images than any book before it."--Colin Westerbeck in Michel Frizot, et. al., The New History of Photography
Fine- in Near Fine- dust jacket; tight square binding; lower board edges just slightly discolored; discreet dealer's pencil markings on front flyleaf and rear pastedown; complete jacket is typically tanned; moderate edge wear and creasing with few small tears of less than 1/4"; minute chipping at crown of spine.
|
back