Saul Leiter

"Saul Leiter's early black and white photographs are as innovative and challenging as his highly regarded early work in color. Breaking with the documentary tradition, Leiter responded to the dynamic street life of New York City with a spontaneity and openness that resulted in vibrant, impressionistic images that have the immediacy of an accomplished artist's sketch. With his unconventional framing and nuanced use of light, shadow and tone, Leiter created images with a lyrical subtlety like no other photographer of his era, and brought the same sensibility to his intimate and frank portrayals of family members and friends. Early Black and White shows the impressive range of Leiter's early photography."--Slipcase.

'A photographer's gift to the viewer is sometimes beauty in the overlooked ordinary' Saul Leiter Photography lovers the world over are now embracing Saul Leiter, who has enjoyed a remarkable revival since fading into relative obscurity in the 1980s. This collection reveals the secrets of his appeal, from his life philosophy and lyricism to masterful colours and compositions. Some 200 works - including early street photographs, images for advertising, nudes and paintings - cover Leiter's career from the 1940s onwards, accompanied by quotations from the artist himself that express his singular world view.

This revealing collection of Saul Leiter’s work, much of it published here for the first time, underscores the photographer’s unique contributions to the development of twentieth-century photography and the use of color. Saul Leiter’s painterly images evoke the flow and rhythm of life on the midcentury streets of New York in luminous color, at a time when his contemporaries were shooting in black and white. His mastery of color is displayed in unconventional cityscapes in which reflections, transparency, complex framing, and mirroring effects are married to a very personal printing style, creating a unique kind of urban view; his complex and impressionistic photographs are as much about evoking an atmosphere as nailing the decisive moment. Leiter’s studio in New York’s East Village, where he lived from 1952 until his death in 2013, is now home to the Saul Leiter Foundation, which is undertaking a full-scale survey and organization of Leiter’s more than eighty thousand images with the aim of compiling his complete archive. This volume contains items discovered through this undertaking: valuable documents that reveal the secrets of Saul Leiter’s process, unpublished works, popular color works, black-and-white images that have never been published before, as well as images that hold the memories of those closest to him, taken in private. As Saul Leiter said, “photographs are often treated as capturing important moments, but they are really small fragments and memories of the world that never ends.”

In 2015, François Halard (b. 1961, French) visited late Saul Leiter?s almost empty apartment in the East Village, two years after his passing, in 2013. He took photographs of the decrepit walls, the empty closet, and of what Saul Leiter had left behind. Saul Leiter (1923?2013) was an American painter and photographer whose work was deeply connected to the East Village, the neighborhood he lived in for over fifty five years. His sometimes abstract, always soulful, photography constitutes a record of street scenes in both black & white and color. After the release of a first book in 2006, fifty years after he started working, Leiter has been considered a pioneer in color photography, even if he would have resented the use of the word; he just happened to have his camera with him, never particularly planning to take photographs as he explained in the 2011 documentary In No Great Hurry:? I don?t know if I?m going to get what I?m going to get ±. François Halard somehow manages to catch the spirit of Saul Leiter, turning the pages you feel he might appear in the next spread. Or at least his cat will. But the space remains beautifully empty. Except for the bodies and people present in the photographs he left behind which François Halard photographed as part of the interior. This might be the most surprising element yet; bodies and people appearing in François Halard?s photography, most of the time strictly uninhabited. They are Halard?s homage to Saul Leiter.

Fed by thrilling recent discoveries from Saul Leiter's vast archive, In My Room provides an in-depth study of the nude, through intimate photographs of the women Leiter knew. Showing deeply personal interior spaces, often illuminated by the lush natural light of the artist's studio in New York City's East Village, these black-and-white images reveal the unique collaboration between Leiter and his subjects. In the 1970s, Leiter planned to make a book of his nudes, but never realized the project in his lifetime. Now we are granted a first-time look at this body of work, which Leiter began on his arrival in New York in 1946 and chipped away at over the next two decades. Leiter, who was also a painter, incorporates abstract elements into these photographs and often shows the influence of his favorite artists, including Bonnard, Vuillard and Matisse. The prolific Leiter, who painted and took pictures fervently up to his death, worked in relative obscurity well into his eighties. Leiter preferred solitude in life, and resisted any type of explanation or analysis of his work. With In My Room, Leiter ushers viewers into his private world while retaining his strong sense of mystery.

Fred Herzog's bold use of colour in the 1950s and 60s set him apart at a time when the only art photography taken seriously was in black and white. His early use of color make him a forerunner of "New Colour" photographers such as Stephen Shore and William Eggleston, who received widespread acclaim in the 1970s. Herzog images were all taken on Kodachrome, a slide film with a sharpness and tonal range that, until recently, could not be reproduced in prints, and his choice of medium limited his exhibition opportunities. However, recent advances in digital technology have made high-quality prints of his work possible, and in the past few years his substantial and influential body of work has been available to a wider audience. Fred Herzog: Photographs showcases this innovative artist's impressive oeuvre in a beautifully crafted volume of early color and urban street photography. Providing authoritative texts are four titans of the art community: Jeff Wall anchors Herzog's place in the history of photography, Claudia Gochmann sets his work in an international context and Sarah Milroy and Douglas Coupland provide additional commentary.

The New York School of Photography refers to a loosely defined group of photographers who lived and worked in New York City during the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. Through a stunning selection of 250 photographs, along with quotes from the photographers, the author shows the New York School's distinctive style. Livingston is associate director and chief curator of the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.

New York in Color presents the best color photography of New York over the last century. From its iconic landmarks like Times Square and Coney Island to the visual poetry of its streets and skyline, New York presents an ever-changing visual collage best seen in color. Here, neon lights define the spirit of the night, a young Bob Dylan lingers in the snows of Greenwich Village, subway trains are rolling murals, and New Yorkers of every era become dramatic actors on the world's greatest stage. Presenting work--much of it unknown--by major photographers, including such masters as André Kertész, William Klein, Helen Levitt, and Joel Meyerowitz, New York in Color is destined to be a classic photographic survey of the world's most visually vibrant city. Praise for New York in Color: "Even in black-and-white, New York's colors come through. They do so more vividly in New York in Color, a stunning, color-only anthology." --New York Times "Shamis . . . is to be praised not only for his selections but also for the fine sequencing--we see a picture of Coney Island circa 1902, for instance, right before another circa 1956--that adds to our appreciation of the individual images." --William Meyers, Wall Street Journal "The two hundred images represent a visual conversation about New York, one that is inflected with everything from soft, pastel hues to jolting reds and yellows. There is grit and grace, lightness and laughter. And, yes, tragedy--a selection of images near the end is devoted to the World Trade Center." --New York Times Lens Blog "Offer[s] a rare glimpse of colorful city life. . . . Flipping through the book shows that New York City life was never gray" --New York Post "A fantastic collection and the perfect gift book for anyone who loves the city or fine photography." --Connecticut Post "There's no shortage of iconic black-and-white New York images. What you may be less familiar with, however, is the city's rich history of color photography. This history is the subject of curator Bob Shamis's stunning new coffee-table book, New York in Color, which is filled with some two hundred vibrant photos from the past hundred years." --PureWow.com