Robert Frank: The Americans

[IGMeanwell]

I got an email from Amazon saying that my order for this won't be fulfilled ... that pretty much sucks 🙁

oh well, guess I'll wait until I can find it again

 

[adep]

I got an email from Amazon saying that my order for this won't be fulfilled ... that pretty much sucks 🙁

oh well, guess I'll wait until I can find it again

Same here, ordered on the 5th and got the following from Amazon today:

"We are sorry to report that we will not be able to obtain the following
item from your order:

Robert Frank, Jack Kerouac "Robert Frank: The Americans"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3931141802

Though we had expected to be able to send this item to you, we've
since found that it is not available from any of our sources at this
time. We realize this is disappointing news to hear, and we apologize
for the inconvenience we have caused you.

We have cancelled this item from your order."

🙁

 

[John Rountree]

I agree, The Americans should be in everybody's library. I used to study the images and learned a lot. As to different editions... you might be interested know that at least one image has been changed since the early printings. The photo of workers on the automobile assembly line in Detroit is not the same as the mage in earlier editions. It is pretty obvious that the pictures were taken only moments apart, but they are definitely different pictures.

 

[Kyle]

I went into my local Border's today and on the bottom shelf of the photography section, tucked away in the corner, was a copy of The Americans for $45! I picked it up and happily walked up to the register. A nice old fellow saw me checking out and started chatting with me about what a wonderful book it was and about how he found a French edition in a library in Ohio years ago. Unfortunately I was in a hurry so I didn't get to say much to him, but he seemed like an interesting guy and I would have loved to have continued to discuss photography and such with him.

Anyways, its a wonderful book and I'm very excited to have found a copy! 🙂

 

[summaron]

The Americans has gone in and out of print, like a swinging door, over the past decades. At times Frank has been hesitant in letting it be reprinted. I was told he didn't want to be identified with it so strongly, and wanted to move on to other work.

A new book of his photographs of Beirut in the early 90's has just been published by Steidl, not too expensively.

http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/pep/pepdesc.cfm?id=2374

 

[kbg32]

It was about 4 years ago I was walking up the Bowery to meet a friend for a beer. It was around 1:30 AM. I had just finished a photo shoot and was meeting my friend on the corner of Bleeker and Bowery. As we started walking uptown on the west side of the street, I noticed someone walking towards us carrying a very large pack of toilet tissue. I noticed because the person looked familar and the package was unusually larger than a 12 pack. As we got got closer, I recognized the person immediately. As we passed I turned to my friend and asked him if he recognized the person who had just passed? He turned to me and said, "the person with all that toilet paper?" I said yes. "No, who was he?" It was Robert Frank. It was a moment that I wished I taken out my camera and caught. It was kind of funny and surreal.

What this has to with the Americans? I don't know. If Frank was shooting the Americans today, it might have been an image he would taken.

 

[rschneider]

The most recent, and arguably most beautifully printed, edition of The Americans was published by SCALO. SCALO has gone out of business. It's hard to imagine that someone won't pick up the rights for The Americans, but who, when, and what it will look like are guesses.

I believe that eleven sets of prints of the entire essay were made when the SCALO prints were made. They are held by various galleries and museums. The Addison Gallery at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., has a set, which I had the distinct pleasure of seeing a number of years ago when they leant it to the art gallery at Williams College. The prints are all on 16X20 sheets and they are gorgeous. It was well worth a five-hour round trip for a leisurely viewing.

rs