245:. It was first published in France in 1958, and the following year in the United States. The photographs were notable for their distanced view of both high and low strata of American society. The book as a whole created a complicated portrait of the period that was viewed as skeptical of contemporary values and evocative of ubiquitous loneliness. "Frank set out with his Guggenheim Grant to do something new and unconstrained by commercial diktats" and made "a now classic photography book in the iconoclastic spirit of the Beats".
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533:. Frank was involved in the design and production of this edition which used modern scanning of Frank's original prints, and tritone printing. A new format for the book was worked out, new typography selected, a new cover designed and Frank chose the book cloth, foil embossing and endpaper. As he has done for every edition of
448:. Frank presents photographs made in scattered places around the country, returning again and again to such themes as the flag, the automobile, race, restaurantsâeventually turning those artifacts, by the weight of the associations in which he embeds them, into profound and meaningful symbols of American culture.
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The book initially received harsh criticism in the US, where the tone of the book was perceived as derogatory to national ideals. Much of the criticism Frank faced was as well related to his photojournalistic style, wherein the immediacy of the hand-held camera introduced technical imperfections into
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Frank's journey was not without incident. While driving through
Arkansas, Frank was arbitrarily thrown in jail for three days after being stopped by the police who accused him of being a communist (their reasons: he was shabbily dressed, he was Jewish, he had letters about his person from people with
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Frank found a tension in the gloss of
American culture and wealth over race and class differences, which gave his photographs a clear contrast to those of most contemporary American photojournalists, as did his use of unusual focus, low lighting and cropping that deviated from accepted photographic
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Tuggener was a role model for the younger artist, first mentioned to him by Frank's boss and mentor, Zurich commercial photographer
Michael Wolgensinger (1913â1990) who felt that Frank would never fit the commercial system. Tuggener, as a serious artist who had left the commercial world behind, was
413:, a direct inspiration to Frank, with its rigidly framed images shot via large-format viewcamera. Though sales were also poor at first, Kerouac's introduction helped it reach a larger audience because of the popularity of the Beat phenomenon. Over time and through its inspiration of later artists,
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in 1955 to travel across the United States and photograph all strata of its society. He took his family along with him for part of his series of road trips over the next two years, during which time he took 28,000 shots. Only 83 of those were finally selected by him for publication in
357:(2014), said "Swiss-born Frank set out with his Guggenheim Grant to do something new and unconstrained by commercial diktats. His aim was to photograph America as it unfolded before his somewhat sombre outsider's eye. From the start, Frank defined himself against the traditional
522:, with the text removed from the French edition due to concerns that it was too un-American in tone. The added introduction by Kerouac, along with simple captions for the photos, were now the only text in the book, which was intended to mirror the layout of Walker Evans'
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who had just returned to his native
Switzerland after two years abroad, with pages including some of his first pictures from New York. The magazine promoted the two as representatives of the ânew photographyâ of Switzerland.
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on the sidewalk outside a party and showed him the photographs from his travels. Kerouac immediately told Frank "Sure I can write something about these pictures," and he contributed the introduction to the U.S. edition of
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Russian sounding names, his children had foreign sounding names â Pablo & Andrea, and he had foreign whiskey with him). He was also told by a sheriff elsewhere in the South that he had "an hour to leave town."
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were included, that
Delpire positioned opposite Frank's photographs. Many thought that Frank's photos served more to illustrate the writing rather than the converse. The cover was decorated with a drawing by
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became considered a seminal work in
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Frank's divergence from contemporary photographic standards gave him difficulty at first in securing an
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On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the book's original publication (15 May 2008), a new edition was published by
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the âone Frank really did love, from among all Swiss photographers,â according to Guido
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pictures made at upper-class entertainments and in factories, alongside the work of 25 year-old
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after the publisher received a $ 1m endowment grant from the Andrea Frank
Foundation.
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Tom
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Greenough, Sarah; Alexander, Stuart; National Gallery of Art (U.S.) (2009),
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magazine, Walter Laubli (1902â1991), published a substantial portfolio of
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946:"Master of the Photobook: Robert Delpire's Long and Legendary Influence"
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Robert Frank's The Americans : the art of documentary photography
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299:(1938), and on the recommendation of Evans (a previous recipient),
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American witness : the art and life of Robert Frank
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Shortly after returning to New York in 1957, Frank met
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Robert Frank's Elevator Girl sees herself years later
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Walker Evans and Robert Frank: An Essay on Influence
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693:, C. Scribner's sons; London : B.T. Batsford,
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49:. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
640:(First ed.), Da Capo Press (published 2017),
241:which was highly influential in post-war American
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1092:"The making of Robert Frank's 'The Americans'"
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518:was finally published in the United States by
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837:. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
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287:Inspired by fellow Swiss Tuggener's book,
1118:"Looking in on photographer Robert Frank"
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321:John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
109:Learn how and when to remove this message
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361:magazine school of romantic reportage."
1036:Vuncannon, Douglas (17 December 2008).
464:, 1997 6th printing (3rd Scalo edition)
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478:was first published on 15 May 1958 by
16:1958 photographic book by Robert Frank
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921:. American Ethnography Quasimonthly.
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636:Smith, R. J (7 November 2017),
436:is in ways reminiscent both of
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34:needs additional citations for
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903:. Yale University Art Gallery.
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919:"Photography and Sociology"
870:The New York Times Magazine
573:, San Francisco, CA, 2009;
253:In 1949, the new editor of
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796:, Intellect, p. 118,
575:Metropolitan Museum of Art
295:(1936), and Walker Evans'
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1248:Photography exhibitions
567:National Gallery of Art
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284:by Delpire, in 1958.
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717:American photographs
603:(30 November 2014).
524:American Photographs
486:series. Writings by
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411:American Photographs
297:American Photographs
43:improve this article
690:The English at home
666:, Rotapfel-verlag,
406:Popular Photography
293:The English at Home
136:, 1969 2nd printing
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861:Dawidoff, Nicholas
554:Ackland Art Museum
488:Simone de Beauvoir
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453:Publishing history
424:has written about
315:, Frank secured a
305:Alexander Liberman
121:
1180:www.metmuseum.org
1018:. 9 November 2021
1016:The Art Newspaper
915:Becker, Howard S.
803:978-1-84150-315-8
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1233:Jack Kerouac
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36:verification
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548:Exhibitions
520:Grove Press
438:Tocqueville
375:Beat writer
289:Bill Brandt
243:photography
182:Grove Press
169:Photography
1222:Categories
1190:2019-04-28
1161:2019-04-28
1132:2019-04-28
1102:2019-04-28
1077:2019-04-28
1047:2019-04-28
1022:2023-08-22
929:17 January
728:2018-08-23
701:2018-08-23
674:2018-08-23
582:References
249:Background
69:newspapers
1042:INDY Week
514:In 1959,
351:road trip
319:from the
174:Publisher
1184:Archived
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1096:Archived
1071:Archived
1067:The Hive
990:Archived
956:Archived
923:Archived
917:(2009).
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839:Archived
811:citation
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722:archived
695:archived
668:archived
621:15 March
615:Archived
542:Aperture
213:Hardback
150:Language
996:2 March
158:Subject
83:scholar
1122:SFGate
986:Steidl
845:5 July
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311:, and
274:Fabrik
256:Camera
205:France
186:Steidl
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389:Style
282:Paris
166:Genre
90:JSTOR
76:books
998:2003
964:2015
951:Time
931:2009
883:2015
847:2015
821:link
817:link
798:ISBN
774:ISBN
746:link
742:link
642:ISBN
623:2015
502:and
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359:Life
219:ISBN
197:1958
62:news
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