Frontier

When I worked at the store with my dad, I'd often sneak off to the stockyards. Watching thecow boys herd cattle and horses, their ropes spinning effortlessly, left an indelible impression onme. It was a vivid, living image of strength and independence, one that has stayed with me all mylife.... Krantz's photographs often feel familiar. His commercial work for major US brands have made hisimagery synomous with that associated with the dream of the American West. Widely reproducedanonymously for decades on billboards, in magazines and other media, his photographs arefurther familarised through their appropriation by arist Richard Prince. The publication of Frontiercomes at a time when aspects of everyday life- air conditioning, desk jobs, lack of access to natureand the reliance on the motor car-increase man's divorce from this way of life. With millions ofacres of land in the US lost to development, farms, cities, powerplants and other infrastruction, theability and freedom to roam the land are fast disappearing and Krantz's book a resonant swansongto the fast disappearing myth.