The Americans

Robert Frank

SCALO, in association with the National Gallery of Art, 1998 - Art - 179 pages

Introduction by Jack Kerouac. There is no question that Robert Frank's The Americans is the most famous and influential photography book ever published. It was 1959 when the book first came out: a series of deceptively simple photographs that Frank took on a trip through America in '55 and '56, pictures of normal people, everyday scenes: lunch counters, bus depots, cars, and the stangely familiar faces of people we don't quite know but have seen somewhere. They are pictures that saw the "American way of life" as we hadn't yet quite been able to see it ourselves, photographs that condensed the entire life of a nation in classic images that still speak to us today, forty years and several generations later.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Tatoosh - LibraryThing

"The Americans" is a much-acclaimed book of photographs lauded by practically all. I had wanted to see it for a long time, but I found it to be a disappointment. "The Americans" ostensibly portrays a ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - bensdad00 - LibraryThing

Excellent photographs by Frank; shitty, pompous, self-indulgent introduction by Kerouac.

About the author

Robert Frank, Ph.D., is an educational psychologist, family therapist, and assistant professor of psychology at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines, Illinois. His dyslexia was undiagnosed until graduate school. He is married and the father of two children.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Americans
• Author: Robert Frank
• Contributor: Robert Frank
• Edition: 3, illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: SCALO, in association with the National Gallery of Art, 1998
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Aug 13, 2010
• Length: 179 pages
• Subjects: Art / American / General; History / United States / 20th Century; Photography / General; Photography / Individual Photographer; Photography / Individual Photographers / General; Photography / Photoessays & Documentaries; United States