Saul Leiter

Saul Leiter (December 3, 1923 – November 26, 2013) was an American photographer and painter whose early work in the 1940s and 1950s was an important contribution to what came to be recognized as the New York school of photography.

Life and work Saul Leiter was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father was a well known Talmud scholar and Saul studied to become a rabbi. His mother gave him his first camera at age 12. At age 23, he left theology school and moved to New York City to become an artist. He had developed an early interest in painting and had met the Abstract Expressionist painter Richard Pousette-Dart.

Pousette-Dart and W. Eugene Smith encouraged Leiter to pursue photography and he was soon taking black and white pictures with a 35 mm Leica, which he acquired in exchange for a few Eugene Smith prints. In 1948, he started taking color photographs. and partner until Soames' death in 2002. In the early 1960s, she moved into Leiter's apartment building on East Tenth Street, where they had separate studios. At times, both were struggling financially, and they couldn't pay their rent.

Edward Steichen included Leiter's black and white photographs in the 1953 exhibition Always the Young Stranger at the Museum of Modern Art. Leiter's work is featured prominently in Jane Livingston's book The New York School (1992) Leiter is a featured subject, among others, in the documentary film Tracing Outlines (2015) by 2nd State Productions.

Martin Harrison, editor and author of Saul Leiter Early Color (2006), writes, "Leiter's sensibility set his photographs apart from some of the defining characteristics of the putative 'New York School' – as typified by the visceral encounters with the pulse and anxieties of street life familiar from the 1950s imagery of photographers such as Robert Frank and William Klein. Leiter, by contrast, operated on a more reflective, less overtly confrontational mode, seeking out tranquility in the Manhattan maelstrom."

Leiter died on November 26, 2013, aged 89. in New York City.

Publications Early Color. Introduction by Martin Harrison. Göttingen: Steidl, 2006. . Göttingen: Steidl, 2013. . Saul Leiter. Paris: Delpire, 2007. Photo Poche series. London: Thames & Hudson, 2008. . Photofile series. Early Black and White. Göttingen: Steidl, 2008. Göttingen: Steidl; Howard Greenberg Gallery, 2014. . Two volumes, boxed edition. By Max Kozloff, edited by Howard Greenberg and Bob Shamis with the assistance of Margit Erb, with an additional essay by Jane Livingston. Saul Leiter. Göttingen: Steidl, 2008. . Preface by Agnès Sire. Photographs and Works on Paper. Antwerp: Fifty One Publication, 2011. . Exhibition Catalogue. Saul Leiter Retrospektive. Hamburg: Kehrer Verlag, 2012. Here's more, why not?. Antwerp: Fifty One Publication, 2013. . Painted Nudes. London: Sylph, 2015. . All About Saul Leiter. Seigensha, 2017. Catalogue published to accompany an exhibition at the Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, 2017. Captions in English and Japanese. London: Thames & Hudson, 2018. In My Room. Göttingen; Steidl, 2018. Women. Tokyo: Space Shower, 2018. . Mostly photographs, some paintings. East 10th Street. Antwerp: Fifty One Publication, 2019. Forever Saul Leiter. London: Thames & Hudson, 2022. The Unseen Saul Leiter. London: Thames & Hudson, 2022. . Previously unseen slides from Leiter archive, curated by Erb & Parillo.

Filmography In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life with Saul Leiter (2013) – documentary about Leiter directed and produced by Tomas Leach; 75 mins

Solo exhibitions

1944: Ten Thirty Gallery, Cleveland 1945: The Outlines Gallery, Pittsburgh 1947: Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH 1950s: Tanager Gallery, New York 1954: Emerging Talent. Curated by Clement Greenberg. Samuel Koontz Gallery, New York. 1972: Midtown Y, New York 1984: Gallery Lafayette, New York 1985: Gallery Lafayette, New York 1993: Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York 1994: Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York 1997: Saul Leiter, In Color. Martha Schneider Gallery, Chicago 1997: Saul Leiter, In Color. Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York 2004: Saul Leiter, In Color. Staton Greenberg Gallery, Santa Barbara 2005: Saul Leiter, Early Color. Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York 2006: The Fashion Photographs of Saul Leiter, Festival of Fashion Photography, Hyères, France 2006: Saul Leiter, Color, Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp 2006: In Living Color, Photographs by Saul Leiter, Milwaukee Art Museum 2007: Saul Leiter, Early Color, University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor 2008: Saul Leiter, Galerie Camera Obscura, Paris 2008: Saul Leiter, Faggionato Fine Arts, London 2008: Saul Leiter, Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York 2008: Saul Leiter, Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta 2008: Saul Leiter, Galleria C arla Sozzani, Milan 2008: Saul Leiter, Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris 2009: Saul Leiter, Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp 2010: Saul Leiter, Mois de la Foto, Paris 2011: Saul Leiter, New York Reflections, Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam 2011: Saul Leiter, Early Color, Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne 2011: Saul Leiter, Photographs and works on paper, Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp 2012: Saul Leiter, Retrospective, Deichtorhallen Hamburg 2013: Saul Leiter, Here's more, why not, Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp 2013: Saul Leiter, Black & white, Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp 2013: Saul Leiter, Kunst Haus Wien 2015: Homage to Saul Leiter, Fifty One gallery, Antwerp 2024: Saul Leiter: An Unfinished World, MK Gallery, Milton Keynes 2024: Saul Leiter: Centennial, Howard Greenberg Gallery

Collections

Leiter's work is held in the following public collections: Addison Gallery of American Art The Albertina Museum, Vienna Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth Art Institute of Chicago Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore Milwaukee Art Museum Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Museum of Modern Art, New York National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin Victoria & Albert Museum, London Whitney Museum of American Arts, New York