Robert Frank's Americans reappear 40 years after they were initially published in this exquisite volume by Scalo. Each photograph (there are more than 80 of them) stands alone on a page, while the caption information is included at the back of the book, allowing viewers an unfettered look at the images. Jack Kerouac's original introduction, commissioned when the photographer showed the writer his work while sitting on a sidewalk one night outside of a party, provides the only accompanying text. Kerouac's words add narrative dimension to Frank's imagery while in turn the photographs themselves perfectly illustrate the writer's own work.

Product Description
In 1958, the first edition of Robert Frank's The Americans was published in Paris. Les Americains contained Frank's 83 photographs in the same sequence as all subsequent editions, with the image on the right hand page, but juxtaposed with historical texts about American society and politics, gathered by Alain Bosquet. The following year, in the first American edition, the French texts were removed and an introduction by Jack Kerouac was added. Over the subsequent 50 years, The Americans has been republished in many editions, in numerous languages, with a variety of cover designs and even in a range of sizes. It is the most famous photography book ever published, and it changed the face of the medium forever.
Robert Frank discussed with his publisher, Gerhard Steidl, the idea of producing a new edition using modern scanning and the finest tritone printing. The starting point was to bring original prints from New York to Gottingen, Germany, where Steidl is based.
In July 2007, Frank visited Gottingen. A new format for the book was worked out and new typography selected. A new cover was designed and Frank chose the book cloth, foil for embossing and the endpaper. Most significantly, as he has done for every edition of The Americans, Frank changed the cropping of many of the photographs, usually including more information. Two images were changed completely from the original 1958 and 1959 editions.

In the Scalo version, the place-name captions have been removed from the pages opposite the photographs and collected in the back of the book. Forget any ideas you might have of Frank's book being a travelogue. In place of the itinerary, the Scalo edition finally establishes the ORDER of the book's photographs as the crucial ingredient in Frank's complex vision of America. The 83-photograph sequence cuts between elliptical narrative of the open road and comparative sociology of dead-end lives as Frank turns free association into inescapable logic and then back again. The result is the most masterful combination of photographs in book form.

The subjects of Frank's photographs roam this fractured typology like prophets locked in an unstable time loop. Geography no longer takes center stage as the formative element of their photographic selves. In some small but significant way, the americans in the Scalo edition reclaim the intentionality of their sadness, anger, and alienation. The bitter and often unwilling nature of their engagements with Frank take center stage, each as profound an act of refusal as Frank's own denunciation of the pasteboard optimism of '50s America.


A Masterpiece That Revolutionized Photography   December 24, 2004
 26 out of 27 found this review helpful

Robert Frank with this small little book changed the course of photography. He changed the way people take photographs. He changed the way we look at photographs. He changed the definition of what was an acceptable or good photograph. The way Monet and Picasso changed how one could paint, Frank changed the way one could photograph.

How did he do this? He basically introduced the "icongraphic photograph" to the world. Take for example, his picture in the Americans of a political rally for Ike. It is of a man standing against a blank wall, playing the tuba. But the tuba's opening obscures his face, all you see is the big blank dark opening of the the tuba where his eyes and mouth are suppossed to be. And then right behind the tuba, almost coming out of it, a flag, an American flag, though shapeless, and formless and it snakes out of the picture. On the man's lapel is a big "For Ike" button. At the time, this was a radical photograph and statement about politics and the role of the individual in political life; remember this was 1957.

There are many many many other photographs like this throughout the Americans: St. Peter taking on City Hall. The American flag covering the faces of the people at a parade. The jukebox everywhere. The signs screaming "No Negroes Allowed" while on the next page is a photograph of an older black women holding in her arms, caring for, a young white baby. Frank clearly asking, screaming, why is it okay for them to care your for babies but not okay for them to use the same toilet as you?

It is a subtle but very powerful book. And once you see it, once you get it, you can never see a photograph the same way again.

He has influenced every photographer who has come after him.
Without Robert Frank there would be no Gary Winograd, Eugene Richards, Gilles Peres, William Klien, Bruce Davidson, Alex Webb, Salgado, Danny Lyon, James Nachtwey, Lauren Greenblatt, Ron Haviv, or Herb Ritts.

This book is the starting point for anyone interested in photography, or at least photography after 1958 when this book was first published.



PHOTOGRAPHER BIBLE   January 29, 1999
 13 out of 17 found this review helpful

After 19 years of working as a pro photographer, I was simply stunted, wordless and sad, because not having a pearle like this in my library. Simply-PERFECT!!!


A classic of 20th Century Photography   October 10, 1998
 13 out of 15 found this review helpful

In 1955, Swiss photographer Robert Frank traveled around the United States on a Guggenheim Fellowship. The images he created were published first in France in 1958, and then the following year in America. Highly controversial in its day, "The Americans" gave us a much needed outsiders view of who we are as a people.

Frank is an incredibly skilled image maker, able communicate on many different levels with a single image. Jack Kerouac is the perfect person to write the intro to this book. Both artists worked in a similar way, using travel, speed and chance to communicate fleeting, yet deep, feelings about our complex culture.

Perfectly enjoyable by anyone with an interest in American culture, but essential for those practicing documentary photography.


a SWISS guy with a GERMAN camera taking AMERICAN pictures   December 29, 1998
 11 out of 12 found this review helpful

this is the only book to buy if you are interested in photography. every image is true. if you ever have a chance to view the actual prints, don't miss them. i have learned more about photography from looking at this book than any other source. it is a masterpiece.