Loading...
3rd out of 40 books
—
12 voters
My rating:
add to my books
Robert Frank: The Americans
by
Robert Frank
Armed with a camera and a fresh cache of film and bankrolled by a Guggenheim Foundation grant, Robert Frank crisscrossed the United States during 1955 and 1956. The photographs he brought back form a portrait of the country at the time and hint at its future. He saw the hope of the future in the faces of a couple at city hall in Reno, Nevada, and the despair of the present...more
Hardcover, 180 pages
Published
June 1st 2008
by Steidl
(first published January 12th 1986)
There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!
sign in »
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
1,291)
This is one of my favorite pics from Robert Frank's collection of photos in his classic "The Americans." It's a beautiful chronicle of America in 1955-1956. It's obvious that Frank liked capturing faces, expressions, moods. The introduction was written by Jack Kerouac, where he romanticizes about the American road, as seen through Frank's lens. There are so many great pics, "Drug store-Detroit" being another of my favorites. The one above is titled, "Barber s...more
view 1 comment
The Met show sold me on the brilliance of this book, but one thing worth mentioning before I get around to a longer review: skip the Kerouac intro. When I read it, and read that Frank insisted on including it, I assumed that the rest of the book would be at Jack's mental level (nil) and didn't give it much more than a cursory flip-through. It's much, much smarter than the nonsense intro ("After seeing these pictures you end up finally not knowing anymore whether a jukebox is sadder than a c...more
One of the first widely read and incredibly influential photo books ever printed, Frank's cross country journey over the course of 2 years under a Guggenheim grant, his images show us no matter how far apart we are, we're all the same. His images are a representative slice of the bigger picture at hand. His shooting is free, a few frames per subject, no dwelling, providing a purposeful stroll from town to town.
Through photography, Robert Frank captured snapshots of small, but vital, moments in history. In his photographs, varying from a faction of a crowd at a rodeo to an assembly line at a Ford plant, Frank displays a time many attempt to relate to but cannot fathom. The photographs in the Americans represent ordinary, poetic moments in time. In addition to this, Kerouac's introduction was a fine addition.
A stunning book that changed my views about what Photography can be. Leave it to a European to come to America in the 1950s and in 83 pictures perfectly expose our hypocrisy while respecting and celebrating us as individuals.
Also, for a book without words, it has a killer introduction by Jack Kerouac.
Robert Frank also filmed the documentary C*cksucker Blues, traveling with the Rolling Stones on their 1972 tour for "Exile on Main St." -- for which he also did t...more
Also, for a book without words, it has a killer introduction by Jack Kerouac.
Robert Frank also filmed the documentary C*cksucker Blues, traveling with the Rolling Stones on their 1972 tour for "Exile on Main St." -- for which he also did t...more
If Helen's face launched a thousand ships, and if the Velvet Underground record launched a million garage bands, certainly Robert Frank's dense monograph is the photographic equivalent.
Beautifully elegant images in a harsh, electrifying thematic vein.
Read through it, see into it, read it through, and try not to weep.
Beautifully elegant images in a harsh, electrifying thematic vein.
Read through it, see into it, read it through, and try not to weep.
A seminal book in American photography. Some of the images might seem cliche or kitsch, but that's because Frank has been imitated so many times. I'm not sure why that photograph of a guy getting his shoes shined in a men's restroom is "the loneliest photograph in the world," but it really is.
The photographs are beautiful and disturbing in subtle ways. Initially, some of the images seemed cliche but upon looking closer I found that there is always something in the composition that is the teensiest bit bizarre, whether it is a funeral where the body on display is hidden in the bottom right, or an empty cafe with a baby hangin' around the jukebox. Aside from the images, the intro (Jack Kerouac) is fun too. Jack Kerouac being the perfect person ever to write an intro for robert frank, t...more
Amazing: there's no other way to explain this fact. I'm currently working on writing a poem for all eighty-three photographs in The Americans. It's going to take me probably another three years. When I complete this project, I'm hopefully it will be something really amazing.
These black and white photos, shot in the 1950s by a Swiss immigrant photographer, often show a desolate side of life in the United States. Ranging from bars and funerals, city and countryside, even the glamour shot of a Hollywood movie opening seems to have a dark side.
Urban cowboys, beauty queens, segregation, the working class's diner, an open road to the frontier -- and all kicked off by Kerouac's perfect introduction. A timeless, masterfully rendered document of the (not always so) beautiful truth.
Frank was Swiss and got a Guggenheim grant to go ona huge roadtrip and carry this out. The American people were all looking forward to the release of the book, they thought it'd be pretty-pretty and it'd suck up to them, but no! Out it came and people were offended by it. They were offended because the eye of the outsider saw things which the Americans (not the book, the people) did not want shown. Yes, 1950's hypocrisy in its most classic form.
Well, the world has become quite different an...more
Well, the world has become quite different an...more
Nothing to say really. Frank's mastery with black and white is modern sorcery, (filters like Adams I assume?) and his eye is pitch perfect, as it were. All else is word salad.
Recently reissued, this beautiful book is timeless. The photos were taken when Frank, a native of Switzerland, traveled all over the U.S. in the mid 50's.
B&W photos of the United State as seen by Frank from the 50s, from charity balls to rodeo peeps in NYC. Kerouac wrote the foreword to the images.
I'd say skip the Kerouac intro and let the pictures speak for themselves...some pretty amazing snapshots of America from the 1950s.
A beautiful look at the lower ledges of US society in that period before the cultural revolution of the 60s takes hold.
To quote Kerouac from his intro, "To Robert Frank I now give this message: You got eyes."
These are wonderful timeless images. A classic work to be savored.
These are wonderful timeless images. A classic work to be savored.
The photographs Frank brought back form a portrait of the country at the time and hint at its future.
A gorgeous, moving, vital collection. The Kerouac introduction is itself a prize. I loved this book.
The intro by Kerouac sucked. I never knew until now that Robert Frank was, in fact, Swiss. The photographer of The Americans is not American. Still, really great work.
Read the kerouac introduction - the best thing he wrote, great classic photography too.
It's photography - not really a book you "read." But the photos are really something.
One of the top 10 greatest photographic essays in the history of photography.
A must have in any library. Beautiful collection of Images.
Postwar America, captured by a European. You can pull a strong story from every shot. Great photos, intimate. Kerouac's intro is to be skipped, it adds nothing.
Need to pick this one up every now and again
Girl with cigarette.
Robert Frank!!!!
The intro to this book is by Jack Kerouac and it's a classic few pages of writing. The intro is followed by Robert Frank's pictures of scenes from funerals to political rallies across the states. And Kerouac describes the photos best as beautiful, black and white poems.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Robert Frank is a notable photographer and filmmaker.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
More about Robert Frank...
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
