SAUL LEITER:
AN UNHURRIED SEARCH FOR BEAUTY
Saul Leiter | Self Portrait | 1947
The painterly, wistful eye of Saul Leiter was largely unheard of by the wrong-headed art community in 1950s New York. It’s said that he remained on a lower podium than his contemporaries, Diane Arbus and Richard Avedon. Leiter was a pioneer (a term he humbly accepts, but also challenges) of colour photography, and one of the first photographers to regularly capture the city in colour.
Despite his talents for image-making, he sought neither fame nor commercial success. Instead, slinking through New York’s city streets capturing rain-washed cars, snowy junctions, and ethereal passers-by.
Snow | 1960
Hailing from Pittsburgh, he moved to Manhattan’s East Village in 1952, where he remained for over 50 years. With no formal training in photography, his genius seeped through in his early black and white photographs in the 1940s. Edward Steichen, the revered photographer and major proponent of photography’s acceptance as an art form, spotted Saul Leiter’s work, bookmarking his talent and using 23 photographs in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, titled Always the Young Stranger. Moreover, in 1957 MoMA used 20 of Leiter’s colour images at a conference titled Experimental Photography in Color.
Saul Leiter’s use of colour is often attributed to his enduring interest in painting. A look at his oeuvre will show photographs of resplendent colours. In 1946, the year Leiter moved to New York — ostensibly to become a painter — his friend, Richard Pousette-Dart, encouraged him to pick up a camera.
Carol Brown | Harpers Bazaar | 1958
When the 1950s came around, Leiter was regularly contributing to the fashion magazines Harper’s Bazaar and Esquire, receiving commissioned work from the art director Henry Wolf. Steering clear of the studio, Leiter went against the norm to embrace the unpredictable nature of the New York City streets. He continued working for fashion publications throughout the 60s and 70s.
His non-commercial, iconic photographs from East Village remained hidden from the world’s consciousness, until 2006 when Steidl published his monograph Early Color. This richly colourful body of work was the first unveiling of his oeuvre to the public, and still remains in reprint due to its success.
“I may be old-fashioned. But I believe there is such a thing as a search for beauty – a delight in the nice things in the world. And I don’t think one should have to apologize for it.” – Saul Leiter
In the early 1980s financial hardship struck the artist, forcing the closure of his Fifth Avenue studio. This set in motion 20 penurious years of living and working virtually unknown. His groundbreaking monograph Early Color, which Leiter called his ‘little book’, became an overnight sensation with worldwide distribution. Firmly establishing the artist within the annals of art history and a pioneer of colour photography.
“There are the things that are out in the open and then there are the things that are hidden, and life has more to do, the real world has more to do with what is hidden, maybe. You think?” – Saul Leiter in In No Great Hurry, a film by Tomas Leach
Red Umbrella | 1955
Saul Leiter's work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Victoria and Albert Museum; the National Gallery of Australia; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Milwaukee Art Museum; the Yale University Art Gallery; and other prestigious public and private collections. He is represented by the Howard Greenberg Gallery.
Thank you for reading,
Kieran McMullan & Cluster Team.