First published in France in 1958 and subsequently in the United States in 1959, Robert Frank’s The Americans has become one of the most impactful and influential photobooks. A Swiss émigré, Frank brought an unflinching outsider’s perspective on America, similar to Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America a hundred and twenty years earlier.
Over a 9 month period from 1955 to 1956 Frank exhaustingly traveled across more than 30 states covering 10,000 miles, exposing 767 rolls of film.
Robert Frank’s The Americans (the twelfth Steidl edition, 2019) is based on the first Steidl 2008 edition, which was produced under Robert Frank’s supervision. The book contains 83 photographs, presented one per page, and includes an introduction by Beat poet and novelist Jack Kerouac, who powerfully captures Frank’s work in words.*
“Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice, with that little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of the world.”
– Jack Kerouac
That little camera Kerouac was referencing was a Leica III fitted with a Nikkor S.C 5cm (50mm) f/1.4.
The balanced sequencing of movement and stillness imbues the book with a lyrical narrative. The honesty and rawness of Frank’s photos strip back the patina of the postwar Eisenhower era, painting a poignant and incomparable portrait of mid-century America.
Robert Frank’s The Americans has had an undeniably profound influence on street and documentary photographers, including myself. It would take a series of articles to cover everything I have personally learned and applied to my own street photography from this book. The Americans is a quintessential book to have in your library and one to reference often before you head out to photograph.