London Wales

Robert Frank
London Wales

Photographs: Robert Frank

Publisher: Scalo

Year: 2003

Comments: Hardcover under dust jacket, 24,5 x 20 cm, first edition (published 4 years before the Steidl edition in 2007) b&w photographs. Text in English. In very good condition other than a scratch and a tiny bumped on corners without affecting the pages. COPY SIGNED BY Robert Frank.

"War is over; the heroic French population reaffirms superiority. Love, Paris, and Flowersbut London was black, white, and gray, the elegance, the style, all present in front of always changing fog. Then I met a man from Wales talking about the Miners and I had read How Green Was My Valley. This became my only try to make a 'Story'." Robert Frank

London/Wales brings together two distinct bodies of work to reveal a new understanding of Franks contribution to the history of photography. Juxtaposing the world of money and the world of work in post-war England, Frank photographed London bankers, workers, and children, and Welsh coal miners and their families. These images poetically evoke relationships between the classes during a time of change in Britain. Setting a significant documentary precedent for Franks best known work, The Americans, London/Walesdemonstrates the artists early interest in social commentary, the narrative potential of photographic sequencing and his innovative use of the expressionistic qualities of the medium.