Robert Frank

A first edition copy of Robert Frank's The Lines of My Hand.

• Robert Frank (Swiss-American).
• Design by Sugiura Kohei and Tsuji Syuhei.
• Tokyo: Yugensha / Kazuhiko Motomura, 1972.
• 119 pages.
• Folio.
• With black-and-white photographs printed in offset.
• Bound in black rough cloth-covered boards, titles stamped in white to spine and upper side, 32-page text booklet laid in as issued, publisher's black cloth-covered board slipcase, titles to spine in white, photographic reproduction mounted on upper side.
• Accompanied by original shipping carton with title stenciled to spine.

This is Robert Frank's photographic autobiography, dedicated to his two children, Pablo and Andrea, "who are trying to find a better way to live." The photographs represent every stage of his work to the time of publishing, presented chronologically and selected less for their historic or aesthetic significance than their personal meaning. The Lines of My Hand is the first of three books Frank made with Motomura Kazuhiko, a collector of photographs and photography books and occasional publisher, each designed by Sugiura Kohei who was responsible for several of the most striking Japanese photobooks of the 1960s and '70s.

It was issued in two variants, each with a black-and-white photographic reproduction on the slipcase, the present copy with "Platte River, Tennessee." On page 75, a photograph of a postcard sent to Frank by Jack Kerouac references this photograph as used on the cover. Kerouac writes: "Dear Robert — That photo you sent me of a guy looking over his cow on the Platte River is to me a photo of a man recognizing his own mind's essence, no matter what — Jean ton copain."

Specks of dust falling on the plates during printing led to occasional tiny white marks on some pages. The publisher, Motomura Kazuhiko, would only sell copies once he had examined them and spotted out any marks by hand. After Motomura passed away in 2014, a number of unsold copies with white spots on the pages were made available for sale. The copy offered here was purchased before Motomura passed away and had, therefore, been spotted and approved by him.