Robert Frank: In America

by Robert Frank (Photographs), Peter Galassi (Editor)

Because of the importance of Robert Frank's The Americans ; because he turned to filmmaking in 1959, the same year the book appeared in the United States; and because he made very different kinds of pictures when he returned to still photography in the 1970s, most of Frank's American work of the 1950s is poorly known. This book, based on the important Frank collection at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, is the first to focus on that work. Its careful sequence of 131 plates integrates 22 photographs from The Americans with more than 100 unknown or unfamiliar images to chart the major themes and pictorial strategies of Frank's work in the United States in the 1950s. Peter Galassi's text presents a thorough reconsideration of Frank's first photographic career and examines in detail how he used the full range of photography's vital 35mm vocabulary to reclaim the medium's artistic tradition from the hegemony of the magazines.

Genres: Photography

196 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2014

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss American photographer and documentary filmmaker. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled The Americans, earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and nuanced outsider's view of American society. Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2014, said The Americans "changed the nature of photography, what it could say and how it could say it. [ ... ] it remains perhaps the most influential photography book of the 20th century." Frank later expanded into film and video and experimented with manipulating photographs and photomontage.

Reviews

[Digi M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Frank. What a king. It seems like he had no hesitation to get up close to his subjects, when he completed this trip around america. Perhaps it was just volume, taking so many photos, he may have just stopped over thinking it.

The shots are amazing. I believe his success is that he was able to integrate himself into the group that he was photographing, and then obviously exit unnoticed. So, there are photos taken in funerals, in crowded places, in diners, boats and on the beach.

After finishing this book, I felt that I had been with him on the journey, and was able to witness the major difference in quality of lives in the different areas of america.