Frank�s artist�s book and love letter for his first wife exemplifies the poetic, virtuosic approach to photobooks that would come to define his storied career
Called "a poet with a camera" by Edward Steichen, Robert Frank (1924�2019) was one of many artists who searched for creative freedom in postwar Paris. It was while he was living in the city in 1949 that Frank produced a seminal volume in his oeuvre: a rare, personal photobook made for his then-girlfriend, artist Mary Frank (n�e Lockspeiser). In Mary�s Book, the photographer chronicled his time in the city with his poetic, insightful and inquisitive eye, and experimented for the first time with combining text and image. This singular object proved an important bookmaking exercise for Frank, and remains as evidence of his maturing artistic vision, which led to one of the most influential photobooks of the 20th century, The Americans (1958). Mary�s Book reproduces this love letter in full for the first time, accompanied by insightful essays from leading scholars. This facsimile clothbound volume, inscribed "this is for you" in Frank�s handwriting, re-creates the series of unbound pages nestled within one another, filled with handwritten notes and hand-cut prints. Readers can experience the Paris of the late 1940s through the visual harmonies of Robert Frank.
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Featured spreads are from MFA Publications� new release, Robert Frank: Mary�s Book, a facsimile reprint of the photographer�s poetic 1949 Paris photobook, made for an audience of one. In its new incarnation, this stitched, 7 x 9.5-inch volume with spot varnished images and faithful reproductions of the original paper�stains, notes (English and French), erasures and all�comes housed in a larger clothbound hardcover book that features additional photographs, essays by Frank scholar Stuart Alexander and MFA curator Kristen Gresh, and annotations transcribing and translating Frank�s notes in the photobook that he produced for his beloved, Mary Lockspeiser, just one year before they would marry, in 1950, in New York City. �On the book�s cover is its simply written raison d��tre,� Alexander writes: ��This is for you. It is not much but I promised you a little story. Maybe this is not a story.� Mary�s Book, a love letter from Robert to Mary, is a series of unbound pages nestled within one another, filled with handwritten notes and hand-cut prints. The book is more than a keepsake of their burgeoning love affair. It was an important exercise in bookmaking for Frank, evidence of his maturing artistic vision, which led to one of the most influential photobooks of the twentieth century, The Americans (1958).� continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9 x 12.5 in. / 136 pgs + 24 page facsimile / 75 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $55.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $82 GBP £47.00 ISBN: 9780878469000 PUBLISHER: MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston AVAILABLE: 6/24/2025 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Text by Stuart Alexander, Kristen Gresh.
Frank�s artist�s book and love letter for his first wife exemplifies the poetic, virtuosic approach to photobooks that would come to define his storied career
Called "a poet with a camera" by Edward Steichen, Robert Frank (1924�2019) was one of many artists who searched for creative freedom in postwar Paris. It was while he was living in the city in 1949 that Frank produced a seminal volume in his oeuvre: a rare, personal photobook made for his then-girlfriend, artist Mary Frank (n�e Lockspeiser). In Mary�s Book, the photographer chronicled his time in the city with his poetic, insightful and inquisitive eye, and experimented for the first time with combining text and image. This singular object proved an important bookmaking exercise for Frank, and remains as evidence of his maturing artistic vision, which led to one of the most influential photobooks of the 20th century, The Americans (1958).
Mary�s Book reproduces this love letter in full for the first time, accompanied by insightful essays from leading scholars. This facsimile clothbound volume, inscribed "this is for you" in Frank�s handwriting, re-creates the series of unbound pages nestled within one another, filled with handwritten notes and hand-cut prints. Readers can experience the Paris of the late 1940s through the visual harmonies of Robert Frank.
