Leonard Freed - Police Work - 1980

HIGHLY IMPRESSIVE VINTAGE BOOK from 1980 (!) by Magnum photographer Leonard Freed (not to mix with the recently published book with the same title by the same photographer (Reel Art Press, 2024).

A gritty collection of 124 black and white images that present an intimate look at the work of police officers in New York City in the 80ties.

"When asked why I became so interested in the police, I have to answer... everyone should be. If we do not concern ourselves with who the police are... who they really are... not just "cops" or "pigs," "law enforcement officers" or "boys in blue" we run the real risk of finding that we no longer have public servants who are required to protect the public, but a lawless army from whom we will all take orders. I've seen it as I've worked in countries quite appropriately called "police states."
- Leonard Freed -

With the great cover design by Barry Littmann.
With the great foreword by Pulitzer Prize winning author Studs Terkel.

RARE.

THIS IS THE FIRST BEST-OF-PHOTOBOOKS AUCTION by 5Uhr30.com, starting in 2026.
With more than 100 great lots from my personal collection and from recent acquisitions.

"Police Work is an eloquent, positive, grittily realistic portrait of the life of big-city policemen. Through 124 black-and-white photo-graphs, Leonard Freed has captured all the power, irony, compas-sion, violence, rewards and revulsions of police work. Freed spent many months with policemen on their beats, watching; taking photographs; building a story about the police that shows the isolation, the complexity, the camaraderie, the many dimensions of their work and what it takes to be a "good cop" —intelligence, nerve, understanding, the ability to make lightning decisions of life-and-death proportions. Short, understated captions accompany some of the photographs, but the story is in the images: neighborhood life; stalking suspects; runaways; hustlers; dere-licts; demonstrators; drug busts; prison; kids...
Moving, devastating, sharp, tragic, at times almost overwhelm-ing, here is an unparalleled view of police work and life.
So it is with the men and women whom you casually or studiously observe in this illuminating and strangely moving work. Though they are in uniform, you see beneath their skin."
- Studs Terkel -

Leoard Freed is well-known for some great photobooks like "Black and White in America" and "Made in Germany".

"Ultimately, photography is about who you are. It's the seeking of truth in relation to yourself. And seeking truth becomes a habit."
- Leonard Freed -

This is a lot by 5Uhr30.com (Ecki Heuser, Cologne, Germany).
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A Touchstone Book, New York, published by Simon and Schuster, New York. 1980. First edition, first printing.

Paperback (as issuued). 215 x 280 mm. 198 pages. 124 black and white photos. Photos: Leonard Freed. Cover design: Barry Littmann. Foreword: Studs Terkel. Author's note: Leonard Freed. Text in English.

Condition:
Inside very fresh and flawless; clean with no marks and with no foxing. Outside with trace of use at and along the spine, covers a bit used and yellowed, small crease at the top right corner of the front cover. Overall fine, better than usual condition.

Wonderful, sought-after Vintage photobook from 1980 by Leonard Freed - very scarce in any condition.

Leonard Freed is one of the twentieth century’s most prominent documentary photographers. His photographs have graced the covers of major newspapers and magazines around the world on numerous occasions. A member of the Magnum cooperative, his work is considered a milestone in what has been aptly called “concerned photography”.

"Born in 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, to working-class Jewish parents of Eastern European descent, Leonard Freed first wanted to become a painter. However, he began taking photographs while in the Netherlands in 1953, and discovered that this was what he was passionate about. In 1954, after trips through Europe and North Africa, he returned to the United States and studied in Alexei Brodovitch’s “design laboratory.” He moved to Amsterdam in 1958 and photographed the Jewish community there. He pursued this concern in numerous books and films, examining German society and his own Jewish roots. His book on the Jews in Germany was published in 1961, and Made in Germany, about post-war Germany, appeared in 1965. Working as a freelance photographer from 1961 onward, Freed began to travel widely, photographing Black citizens in America (1964–65), events in Israel (1967–68), the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and the New York City police department (1972–79). He also shot four films for Japanese, Dutch, and Belgian television.
Early in Freed’s career, Edward Steichen, then Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, bought three of his photographs for the museum. Steichen told Freed that he was one of the three best young photographers he had seen and urged him to remain an amateur, as the other two were then doing commercial photography and their work had become uninteresting. “Preferably,” he advised, “be a truck driver.”
Freed became a member of Magnum in 1972. His coverage of the American civil rights movement first made him famous, but he also produced major essays on Poland, Asian immigration in England, North Sea oil development, and Spain after Franco. Photography became Freed’s means of exploring societal violence and racial discrimination.
Leonard Freed died in Garrison, New York, on November 30, 2006."
(Magnum's website)