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Robert Frank: The Americans, 81 Contact Sheets, Limited Edition

Publisher: Tokyo: Yugensha (Kazuhiko Motomura), 2009
Edition: 1st Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: New / No dust jacket as issued
Item #: 107794

$4,750.00

Specifics

SHIPPING NOTE: due to size and weight, additional shipping fees apply (calculated at checkout).

First edition, first printing. Limited edition of 300 numbered copies (from the version of 220 copies enclosed in a paulownia wood box, this being #60), numbered in ink on the silver folio beneath the contact sheet reproductions. 81 unbound four-color plates (size 20-1/4 x 16-5/8 inches) wrapped with a 3-1/8-inch gray paper obi/band and handmade Japanese paper, contained in a silver paper-covered trifold folio debossed with the artist's initials and title. The plates and folio enclosure are further contained in a padded, custom paulownia wood box with the artist's facsimile signature debossed on the lid.

Box dimensions are 24-1/2 x 20-3/4 x 1-3/4 inches. Includes a 24-page laid-in pamphlet with notes on the photographs (in Japanese and English) by Robert Frank (interviewed by Shino Kuraishi). The paulownia wood box and pamphlet are housed in a sturdy black cardboard box with edition number label on edge.

Condition

New in publisher's packaging. A Mint set.

Description

Now from the prestigious Yugensha publishing house, the contact sheets for The Americans is available to collectors in a stunning display worthy of its subject's importance. In 81 large sheets (two images from the book appear on two of the sheets--thus 81 sheets rather than 83), this important meta-document makes visible Frank's picture-making process, as well as illuminating the crucial editing choices that made The Americans such a profoundly seminal book.

From the National Gallery of Art, Washington: "First published in France in 1958, and in the United States in 1959, Robert Frank's book The Americans changed the course of 20th-century photography and helped the nation see itself more clearly. In 83 photographs, Frank looked beneath the surface of American life to reveal a people often plagued by racism, ill-served by their politicians, and rendered numb by a rapidly expanding consumer culture. Yet he also found new areas of beauty in overlooked corners of the country and in the process helped redefine the icons of America.

In his photographs of diners, cars, and even the road itself, Frank pioneered a seemingly intuitive, immediate, off-kilter style that was as innovative as his subjects. Also groundbreaking was the way he tightly sequenced his photographs in The Americans, linking them thematically, conceptually, formally, and linguistically to present a haunting picture of mid-century America. More an ode or a poem than a literal document, The Americans is as powerful and provocative today as it was 50 years ago."