Robert FrankU.S CAMERA (SIGNED)

The 1958 edition of U.S. Camera marked the first time that a portfolio of images that would eventually appear in Robert Frank's monumental book, The Americans, was published in the United States.

« Predating the publication of The Americans was a portfolio of Frank’s images published within the pages of the 1958 U. S. Camera Annual. With a preface by Robert Frank’s mentor and champion Walker Evans, and a statement by Frank himself, the 33 images constitute a declaration of purpose and serve as an overture to the masterwork yet to come. 

Frank's impact on the photographic world came primarily through The Americans, which was published in France, in 1958, and in the US, in 1959.  But there was already a buzz about the project when U.S Camera, 1958 hit the bookstores and camera shops in December 1957 -- in part because of the Guggeneheim fellowship's prestige and in part because of Walker Evans' very public enthusiasm for the project.  (As you can see in the second photo, Evans wrote an introduction to the portfolio.)

The portfolio contains over thirty photos, nearly half of which don't appear in The Americans.

U. S. Camera magazine was a publication geared toward both professional and serious amateur photographers. It was popular, prestigious, and ultimately conservative in its pictorial approach, with an emphasis on equipment and technique. U. S. Camera produced an Annual each year, a yearbook that summed up the achievements in the field. The fact that Robert Frank, whose work was temperamentally and aesthetically at odds with the magazine’s usual fare, was selected for the Annual owes much to the clear-eyed vision of the magazine’s editor Thomas J. Maloney who wrote that “Frank is a fine photographer, perhaps because of his philosophy. To it he adds an eye that knows what is effective and reaches a climax in picture after picture that mounts to a penetrating whole.” »

 

 

Hardcover without dust jacket as issued 28,8 x 22,5 cm. Nicely design with the insert of the booklet where figured the series "The Americans" in very good condition other than some light stains on cover. Signed by Robert frank.