The Lines of My Hand — Robert Frank, First Parkett / Der Alltag Edition

Robert Frank’s most intimate and elliptical book, here in the rare Parkett / Der Alltag edition published in Switzerland in 1989. Originally released in Japan in 1972 and revised in the U.S. in 1989, this version is its own object — cleanly designed, starkly sequenced, and printed with the cool neutrality of late-80s European publishing. If The Americans was the book that broke the frame, The Lines of My Hand is the book that dissolved it. This is autobiography by way of photographic memory: fragmentary, withdrawn, handwritten, and intensely personal.

The cover, with its ghostly charcoal tracing of a raised palm, signals a departure from traditional narrative structure. Inside, Frank threads together photographs from across his life: his children, his travels, his losses, the flat winter light of Nova Scotia, the asphalt haze of America. The sequencing is poetic and associative, intercut with handwritten notes and reproduced contact sheets. It feels closer to a film diary or sketchbook than a monograph — more Jonas Mekas than Cartier-Bresson. An essential object in the lineage of artist photobooks, deeply influential on later diaristic work by Nan Goldin, Jim Goldberg, or Collier Schorr. Scarce in this edition.

Technical Sheet
Title: The Lines of My Hand
Artist / Author: Robert Frank
Date: 1989
Technique / Printing Method: Offset printing
Medium / Materials: Hardcover photobook
Dimensions: 23.5 x 30 cm
Pages: 80
Publisher / Editor: Parkett / Der Alltag
ISBN: 3-907509-04-8
Condition: NEW