Jonathan Day – författare

Walker Evans said in his 1958 introduction to Robert Frank’s The Americans, 'For the thousandth time, it must be said that pictures speak for themselves, wordlessly, visually, or they fail.' The images revolutionized post-war American photography. With their candid images of men and women from all classes and walks of life, the photographs presented a very different story than that portrayed by the wholesome caricature of midcentury prosperity pervading American photography at the time. Although initially dismissed by his peers for his pioneering work, Frank was ultimately credited with changing the course of the art form, and his photography holds a secure status in the history of twentieth-century art. And he did all this without words. It seems appropriate then – and not a little overdue – that Jonathan Day has created a book that expounds, explores and examines Frank’s work pictorially.  Taking Frank’s iconic images as his point of reference, Day shot new photographs that commented on the road and contemporary America. Here, these images are paired with critical commentary that details the aspects of the work that are visually expounded and explained in Day’s complementary images. A visual entryway to the photographs and themes of this iconic book in the history of photography, Postcards from the Road represents an innovative, carefully considered departure from standard photographic textbooks.

In the mid-1950s, Swiss-born New Yorker Robert Frank embarked on a ten-thousand-mile road trip across America, capturing thousands of photographs of all levels of a rapidly changing society. The resultant photo book, The Americans, represents a seminal moment in both photography and in America's understanding of itself. To mark the book’s fiftieth anniversary, Jonathan Day revisits this pivotal work and contributes a thoughtful and revealing critical commentary. Though the importance of The Americans has been widely acknowledged, it still retains much of its mystery. This comprehensive analysis places it thoroughly in the context of contemporary photography, literature, music, and advertising from its own period through the present.