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 (née 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.

Text by: Stuart Alexander, Kristen Gresh