Great white and black photographers, part 2

 

William Klein

William Klein was part of a family of poor Jewish immigrants, born in New York in 1928. He lived in a neighborhood surrounded by Irish which caused him to be picked on and was discriminated much by them. Friends described him as a bright sarcastic boy who liked art and the humanities. He was very smart that at the age of 14 he enrolled at city college of New York to study sociology. Then when he was 18 he was in the US army for 2 years and spent them in Germany and France.  In 1948 he enrolled at the 'sorbonne' in Paris and 1949, klein studied briefly with lhote and fernand leger. Married Jeanne Florin and lived in France and still lives and works in Paris. His use of high-grain film and wide angles shocked the established order of the photography world and he arned a reputation as an anti-photographer's photographer. In 1954 he returned to New York and decided to photograph New York in a new way, a kind of photographic diary. He got a contract as a fashion photographer for the magazines. He took his work back to Paris and hmanaged to find a french publisher, editions seuil, who believed in it and brought it out in 1956 (re-issued 1995). It was also published in Italy the same year Klein's book won the nadar prize. From 1955 to 1965 he worked for Vogue. From 1965 to the early early 80's he abandoned photography and primarily concentrated on film, made various documentaries like broadway by light in 1958, who are you polly maggoo in 1966 and a couple more. He returned to photography in the 1980s due to a renewed interest in his early work this period is characterized by his use of close-ups and wide angle lenses. In the 90s he received the hasselblad prize and various retrospectives of his films were organized in New York and Japan. In 1997 he rephotographed new

york and had shows in barcellona and Paris, then in 1999 he was awarded the 'medal of the century' by the royal photographic society' in London. He has had some solo exhibitions from 1997 to 2000 all over the world.

Photography i like of him: