Looking In: Robert Frank's The American's (Expanded Edition)

(Photography) Robert Frank, Sarah Greenough

ISBN 10: 3865218067 / ISBN 13: 9783865218063

Published by National Gallery of Art, 2009

About this Item

This definitive, expanded 544-page hardcover edition of Robert Frank's seminal book of photography, The Americans, contains a plethora of additional materials - essential information for scholars and serious photo enthusiasts alike. This edition, and the previously announced 384-page paperback edition, incorporate text and essays that situate Frank's poetic evidence in the culture. This hardcover edition contains all of Frank's contact sheets for The Americans, additional letters and manuscript materials, a chronology (& map) of his trips, and more. Exhibition @The MetMuseumArt/NYC (2009). Illus., 86 in color; 280 tritone.

Seller Inventory # 1185460

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Looking In: Robert Frank's The American's (Expanded Edition)
• Publisher: National Gallery of Art
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3865218067
• ISBN 13: 9783865218063
• Binding: Oversized Hardcover
• Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • PHOTOGRAPHY-MONOGRAPHS

About this title

Synopsis

First published in France in 1958, then in the United States in 1959, Robert Frank's The Americans changed the course of twentieth-century photography.

Looking In: Robert Frank's "The Americans" celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of this prescient book. Drawing on newly examined archival sources, it provides a fascinating in-depth examination of the making of the photographs and the book's construction, using vintage contact sheets, work prints and letters that literally chart Frank's journey around the country on a Guggenheim grant in 1955–56. Curator and editor Sarah Greenough and her colleagues also explore the roots of The Americans in Frank's earlier books, which are abundantly illustrated here, and in books by photographers Walker Evans, Bill Brandt and others. The 83 original photographs from The Americans are presented in sequence in as near vintage prints as possible. The catalogue concludes with an examination of Frank's later reinterpretations and deconstructions of The Americans, bringing full circle the history of this resounding entry in the annals of photography. This volume is a reprint of the 2009 edition.

Review

Like the exhibition, the catalog for “Looking in” was distinguished by its rigorous scholarship. Its expanded, special edition, which included the full contents of “The Americans,” as well as scholarly essays, facsimiles of contact sheets, photographer notes and correspondences, and other archival materials, functioned much like a massive and comprehensive finding guide, though limited to only one of Mr. Frank’s projects. (Maurice Berger The New York Times - Lens)