The Americans.

FRANK, Robert; Introduction by Jack Kerouac.

$16,000.00

Item Number: 146872

New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1959.

First edition of the photographer’s classic work. Oblong quarto, illustrated throughout. Presentation copy, boldly inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “For Peter Thompson Robert Frank.” Near fine in a near fine dust jacket with a small chip to the spine. Introduction by Jack Kerouac. Housed in a custom half morocco and chemise clamshell box. Uncommon in this condition and signed.

Jack Kerouac wrote in his preface of The Americans, "Robert Frank he sucked a sad poem out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of the world. To Robert Frank I now give this message. You got eyes." Frank’s Américains eventually achieved legendary status as "the most renowned photobook of all It struck a chord with a whole generation of American photographers Many memorable photobooks have been derived from this mass of material. None has been more memorable, more influential, nor more fully realized than Frank’s masterpiece" (Parr & Badger I:247). "From the more than 20,000 images that resulted, Frank eventually chose 83 of them and arranged them into four chapters ‘With these photographs,’ he later wrote, ‘I have attempted to show a cross-section of the American population. My effort was to express it simply and without confusion. The view is personal’ Such a simple intention for a book that would so alter the course of modern photography" (Roth, 150).