Book: Robert Frank ‘The Americans’ (1st Scalo edition)

December 2008

 

'The Americans. Photographs by Robert Frank' Introduction by Jack Kerouac. Scalo, Zürich/D.A.P., New York, 1993 (1st Scalo edition)

 

The Americans. Photographs by Robert Frank. Introduction by Jack Kerouac. Scalo, Zürich/D.A.P., New York, 1993.
First Scalo edition. 179 pp. Oblong quarto. Hardbound in photo-illustrated dust jacket. Black-and-white reproductions.

 

 

WOW! One of the seminal books of photography and signed as well.

“It was Frank’s The Americans that made the photographic book into an art form in its own right. Frank was following a lead set by [Wright] Morris’ book (The Inhabitants) and, especially, by Evans’ American Photographs, both of which are designed to let pictures play off each other in a way that controls and reinforces their effect on the viewer. Even Klein’s New York book displays this tendency. But Frank’s goes much further, creating a denser, richer, deeper structure of images than any book before it.”

Colin Westerbeck in Michel Frizot, et. al., The New History of Photography.

Estimated: $1200-1400

 

 

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Photographer: Alec Soth

November 2008

 

Alec Soth (American, b. 1969) 'Two Towels' 2004

 

Alec Soth (American, b. 1969)
Two Towels
2004
From the series Niagara (2006)

 

 

Minneapolis-based photographer Alec Soth has attained international recognition for his photographic series. Notable are the two series Sleeping by the Mississippi (1999-2004) portraying the river and the life along it’s banks and Niagara (2006) where Soth focuses his large format camera on the hotels, residents loves and lives and the environs around Niagara Falls.

His work is firmly rooted in the documentary traditions of Walker Evans and Robert Frank but pushes the documentary form. Whereas Frank used a foreigners eye and ‘snapshot’ photography to challenge traditional notions of American culture in his seminal book The Americans (1958), Soth photographs everyday events of American life – home, romance, religion, bliss, heartbreak and agony – and constructs his vision of the land and people in poetic form. His use of handwritten notes is especially poignant.

His view of America is both narrative, truth and epic construction. Working in a serial form, Soth builds the themes within his series. The connections between people living their lives and facing their plight together – with dignity – becomes fully evident.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

Alec Soth (American, b. 1969) 'Charles, Vasa, Minnesota' 2002

 

Alec Soth (American, b. 1969)
Charles, Vasa, Minnesota
2002
From the series Sleeping by the Mississippi (1999-2004)

 

 

Alec Soth website

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