Americans We
1994
$163.00
First edition of Americans We by Eugene Richards (1994)
First impression
Large format hardback in near fine condition
Signed by Eugene Richards to front end page
Some very minor wear and toning to dust jacket, now in a removable protective sleeve
Very slight toning to extremities of pages
Please note that there is also a printing error - slight glue bleed that has affected the creases of both front and end pages. Please see photos
Otherwise, pages clean, binding firm
About
Richards dedicates this summary of his photojournalistic coverage of the bleakest aspects of our culture to Robert Frank, who in The Americans (1959) challenged American complacency with his vision of lost souls in a land of depressing shadows. Richards offers a frightening, chaotic vision of desperate poverty and ever present violence that makes Frank's pictures look almost nostalgic. Richards is a brilliant photographer whose trademarks are working extremely close to the subject and a kind of quirky framing that results in bizarre, riveting compositions; no one uses the edge of the frame more powerfully. Yet, this book is not wholly successful. Compared with the more focused Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue (1994), it seems to embrace too big a subject. Furthermore, the self-absorbed sensitivity of Richards' text undermines the truly powerful impact of his photographs.
