Robert Frank and The Americans, 50 Years Later

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the release of Robert Frank’s opus. There have been many of versions of this book printed since 1958; ta...

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the release of Robert Frank’s opus. There have been many of versions of this book printed since 1958; take a look:

I have the one on the bottom right, a la Scalo. Steidl has a new edition available; here’s an excert from an excellent write-up at The Online Photographer:

“The new reprint is in some ways more desirable than the virtually
unobtainable (and extremely expensive) first French or first American
editions, at least as far as content is concerned. Frank journeyed to
Göttingen with the 83 original prints, which were carefully re-scanned
to create the finest modern tri-tone reproductions. During the process,
he reportedly rethought the cropping of all but a small number of the
pictures. The new edition also restores the small size of the original
book–those accustomed to modern photo books will be surprised at how
small this book is–and does away with the page numbers and the odd
little triptych Frank had added to some editions as a visual coda. Two
pictures are reproduced from different negatives entirely, slight
variations of the originals.”

Get your copy soon. This thing never goes out of style. It’s like the color black, it is.