Robert Frank: The Americans Hardcover – Special Edition, 9 Jun. 2014

As you probably know, this is one of the most influential books on the history of art and photography.it is also an historic and social statement that gave a push to American and world sensibility. All that can seem a bit forbidding and official, but the reason why it had this effect is because they are great photographs, brilliantly incisive slices of life capturing the DNA of America at the time.Frank was Swiss (i.e. not an American) and his photographs broke the rules -- they often had slabs of out of focus, they were not aligned to the horizontal and vertical and they focused on aspects of life that were not necessarily pretty and sanitised. At first most Americans were turned off by this Outsider view, but he was catching the zeitgeist; after all the forward is by that revolutionary beatnik, forerunner of Dylan, the Beatles and Obama, Jack Kerouac.So in due course his work became a touchstone and inspiration and remains so for many. Check out his work in contrast with Cartier Bresson, equally brilliant and much more composed and proper. they are the Dionysus and Apollo of documentary photography.

Excellent book of now iconic images of America from the 50's.One of the first of its kind and an inspiration to photographers the world over.

These are black and white photographs in the raw, there is very little finesse about them. Technically they are crude. I think you have to be careful not to get carried away by the sort of hero worship that goes with this book and make up your own mind on the photos. I like them, As to the book, it is beautifully produced and well worth the money.If you like it could i suggest that you also get 'Looking in' published by Steidl, a huge 500 page book that gives you the back ground to 'The Americans' and Robert Frank's life. Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans, again an absolutely beautifully produced book.The Americans was not well received largely because of the style of photography and I suspect because American society did not want to see themselves as his pictures showed them (in parts) to be.Out of publication for some time this book is a real beauty if you like that sort of photography, if you like the perfect quality of an Ansel Adams photograph you will find that this is at the other end of the scale.I think that any one who likes books on photography or who was in or liked the beat generation times of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burrough's will be far the poorer for not having it on their book shelf.

Famous book about photographers pictures in black and white.

A seminal book from a seminal photographer. Hard to think that these images stirred as much controversy as they did at the time that they were published, for their hard hitting look at 'real' America, especially since so many photographers have gone on to copy Frank's style in their own way. But a true stand-out book for all generations, let it be a lesson to those who talk about photography with slight mistrust, given that we live in a day and age of photoshopping, this is how the masters did it. Enjoy.

Glossing through the pages of one of Americas most profound documents, photographed by one of the most pioneering photographers of his time. A series of eighty-three black and white photographs taken during 1955 -1956 and first published in 1959 and accompanied by a poetic essay written by the most seminal writer of the beat generation Jack Kerouac. A writer with divine improvisational prose, no doubts then that this conceptual photo-book became the marker for future photographic monographs. It is in itself a visual poem, for Robert Franks' photographs are indeed an ode to the real, a homage to the human condition. He scratched the surface of this iconic landscape and revealed the people of a nation plagued by racism and relentless exponential consumption, although this reality defines beauty. It encompasses everything America ever was, a dream, a dream that belies ambiguity. However, Frank captured America's truth, and from a journalistic perspective that is enlightening. So what of the photographs themselves? Well, over a two-year road trip, Robert Frank had amassed twenty-eight thousand photographs, editing down to eighty-three for the book. A remarkable feat I'm sure which equated to just over a roll of film a day. Reading the images and the stories contained within, one begins to grasp a dark visual literacy to Franks' work, the Afro-American couple interrupted overlooking the residential area of San Francisco. The road trolley (tram) in New Orleans, with the segregated seating. The images vary from locale to locale, the rodeo at Detroit, a city associated with the Automotive Industry. The bar at Gallup, a city in McKinley County, New Mexico. Then there is the bikers gang at Indianapolis, Afro-Americans looking hip in Denim, that time on those motorcycles is synonymous with iconic actors such as Clarke Gable, Marlon Brando, James Dean and countless others. None the less, let's retrace our steps a little because, of the most disconcerting aspect of this monograph. It is one I have a problem with knowing that Frank made 28,000 photographs while documenting America for this commission, we now have to accept that this monograph is a representation of the USA.Though in reality that must have been a dream too, for Robert Frank, because if you look at other photographers of the day. They documented certain key events that marked changes in American society Central High Hallway (O’Halloran, Thomas 1957) and Van Buren Students (Bledsoe, John 1958). So, my question is this; during the time before publication was Robert Frank coerced into ‘an acceptable version’ of his monograph as to superficially hide the ‘truth’ of The Americans? Or, was it, in fact, his artistic interpretation of America. If we scrutinise the landscape of America, two decades earlier, we will discover that it was well documented during The Great Depression, certainly an era that wasn’t overlooked by protagonists Walker Evans (Resettlement Administration 1935-1937), and Dorothea Lange (Farm Security Administration 1936) amongst those, whose work would represent the hardships endured by agricultural workers, pea pickers, and cotton hoers. Arguably by his admission (Art in America, Katz, Lewis 1971), Evans’ work was more objective rather than subjective, citing his photographs did not depict the aesthetic nature of Alfred Stieglitz, whose work was popular at the time. While on the focus of subjectivity, it is here then, we can relate to the work of Robert Frank, as it is the poetic phenomena of The Americans, those critics found difficult to accept; everyone knew those sort of things existed. It is how they are depicted, that makes the photographs much more idiosyncratic, somewhat even emotional, a certain strangeness. Moreover, Robert Frank was an emotional artist, his peers even confirmed his pessimistic wit. So too, do the photographs in the book show a kind of self-awareness, a reflection of how Frank perceived the human condition. As a collector of photographic monographs, this is a book that I wished I had purchased earlier, rather than later in my life. It is an incredible book, but not shocking in comparison to other photographers subjectivity, think Minamata W. Eugene Smith, a master of the photographic essay in my opinion.

Had been looking for a copy of this seminal book by Robert Frank’s for awhile but they were either hard to come by or expensive, or both. This recent reprint by Steidt is excellent and very good value for money. Although the format is a little smaller than I had expected it’s large enough to show the detail and mood of Frank’s amazing photographs. Every student of photography should own a copy.