PANGNIRTUNG by Frank, Robert - 2011

Gottingen, Germany: Gerhard Steidl Druckerei Und Verlag, 2011. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. As New/No Dust Jacket, As Issued.. Gottingen, Germany: Gerhard Steidl Druckerei Und Verlag, 2011. Hardcover. As New/None, As Issued. First Edition/First Printing. 40 pages. Retrospective collection of previously unpublished photographs. One of the most beautiful collections in the Steidl "Robert Frank Project". The First Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. An austerely elegant production by Robert Frank and Gerhard Steidl: Oversize-volume format. Pictorial cloth boards with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Photographs and text by Robert Frank. Printed in tritone on pristine-white, thick uncoated stock paper by Steidl in Gottingen, Germany to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Presents Robert Frank's "Pangnirtung". Landscape photographs of a village of Inuit ("Eskimo") inhabitants in the Arctic Circle. There were roughly 1300 Inuit at the time Frank and his lifelong friend Reginald Rankin visited the remote village in August 1992. The place is un-inhabited today. Despite widespread perception (as a result of "The Americans"), Robert Frank was never an anthropologist/photographer. His subject is death, not life, and he is THE elegiac artist of desolation, loss, and "memento mori" par excellence. He did not photograph a single Inuit in Pangnirtung, who were already dying off although many were still around, as if anticipating and commemorating (before it actually happened) their imminent extinction. In addition to anti-Ansel Adams images of the most majestic natural landscapes, Frank photographed the Christian cemetery where Western explorers and settlers are buried, presenting them as the collection's coda. There is, as it were, only grave beauty in every Robert Frank photograph. "He can portray real pain and capture profound depths of human emotion better than almost any other photographer; indeed, better than almost any other artist in any medium" (Martin Parr and Gerry Badger). Robert Frank died on September 9, 2019 at the age of 94 as the greatest photographer of our time. An absolute "must-have" title for Robert Frank collectors. <b><i> This title is now collectible. This is one of few copies of the First Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. A scarce copy thus. </b></i> 27 tritone plates. Three of Robert Frank's books were selected as among the greatest photography books in "The Photobook". At the age of 92, Robert Frank was profiled in 2016 by The New York Times as "the greatest photographer of our time". A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ROBERT FRANK TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 3869301988.