Frank, Robert. Flamingo. The 1996 Hasselblad Award. Robert Frank.

Scalo, 1997. Hardcover, fine with protected VG+ dust jacket. Presumed 1st edition, no later editions or printings indicated. Note: reflections in image of cover. Summary:

lamingo: The Hasselblad Award 1996 (published in 1997 by Scalo/Hasselblad Center) is a 52-page exhibition catalogue celebrating Swiss-American photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank as the recipient of the prestigious Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography.

Key Details & Summary

• Scope & Concept: Published to accompany his award exhibition at the Hasselblad Center in Göteborg, Sweden, the volume provides a survey of Frank's career spanning from the late 1940s through the mid-1990s.

• Evolution of Style: While including foundational black-and-white street photographs from his iconic 1950s work The Americans, the book heavily emphasizes his later, more introspective and experimental output. This includes color collages, photo-sequences, and mixed-media compositions featuring handwritten text and multiple exposures.

• Themes & Imagery: The monograph explores motifs of memory, isolation, loss, and the nature of perception itself. It features surreal and personal compositions—such as the titular image of a toy bird encased in a bottle (Mabou, 1991)—that mark his shift from classic documentary photojournalism to autobiographical art.

• Contributors: Features a foreword by Gunilla Knape and an introductory essay by Swedish art critic Mikael van Reis, who analyzes Frank's poetic approach to intertwining life, memory, and visual narrative.

•   Robert Frank (1924–2019) was a Swiss-born American photographer and filmmaker widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in 20th-century visual culture. Born in Zurich to a Jewish family, Frank trained under commercial photographers in Switzerland before emigrating to New York City in 1947, where he worked as a fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar and traveled extensively across Europe and South America. Awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955, he embarked on a two-year road trip across the United States that culminated in his seminal photobook The Americans (1958/1959)—a raw, outsider critique of post-war American society, racial inequality, and consumer culture that revolutionized street photography with its candid, poetic, and non-traditional aesthetic. Closely aligned with Beat Generation figures like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, Frank pivoted to avant-garde filmmaking in the late 1950s (directing classics like Pull My Daisy and the unreleased Rolling Stones documentary Cocksucker Blues) before returning to photography in his later years with highly personal, experimental multimedia and collages until his death at age 94.