Signed, Leonard Freed (1929-2006) - Photographies 1954-2006 - 1991

Take the opportunity to acquire the out-of-print photo book 'Photographies 1954-1990' (1991, French edition) by the prominent American MAGNUM photographer Leonard Freed (1929-2006) as a SIGNED COPY!

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Background information on the photo book 'Photographies 1954-1990' by Leonard Freed.

About the Berlin photographer Leonard Freed (1929-2006)

The American Magnum photographer Leonard Freed was born on October 23, 1929, in Brooklyn, New York, as the son of Jewish parents from the working class with Eastern European roots. He initially wanted to become a painter but started photographing in the Netherlands and discovered a new passion.
He traveled through Europe and Africa before returning to the United States, where he attended the New School and studied under Alexey BRODOVITCH, the art director of Harper’s Bazaar.
In 1958, he moved to Amsterdam to photograph the local Jewish community. In the 1960s, he continued working as a freelance photojournalist and traveled to many countries.
In 1964/65, he documented the civil rights movement in the USA, in 1973 the Yom Kippur War, and from 1972 to 1979, the New York Police. His career experienced a surge during the American civil rights movement when he accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. on his famous march from Alabama to Washington.
This journey enabled him to publish the book 'Black in White America' (1968), which brought him significant attention.
At the beginning of his career, Edward STEICHEN acquired three of his photographs for the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. In 1967, Cornell CAPA selected Leonard FREED as one of five photographers for his exhibition 'Concerned Photography'. In 1972, he joined Magnum Photos.
Among the magazines for which Leonard FREED wrote over the years were Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, Fortune, Libération, Life, Look, Paris-Match, Stern, and the Sunday Times Magazine from London. Later, he also photographed in Italy, Turkey, Germany, Lebanon, and the USA.



Background information

Leonard Freed (1929-2006), a poet of images without words, invites readers in this volume to walk beyond words and discover the 'universal language' of photography. For this, he selected the most impressive images created over more than thirty years of his career—on journeys across all continents, always with a backpack and camera in tow. For this indispensable witness of wars and other disasters, it is not the 'misfortune' that he has made his profession to document, but 'life with all its emotions' that matters. Around this theme, he designed his collection and combined commissioned works with his own research.

Content

The over 160 black-and-white photographs in the out-of-print photo book 'Photographies 1954–1990' by Leonard FREED are partly violent and disturbing. Yet, in every image, one can feel deep compassion and a lively interest in seemingly every aspect of humanity. Portraits of Hasidic Jews in conversation with their children show the people behind the uniforms. The many impressive photographs of African Americans depict both the reality of oppression and the resilience with which they face it. Fascinating contrasts shape the image: a huge snake winding around the wheel of a stroller on a New York street confronts an elderly man in an Israeli hospital who is panicked by the plastic cables (which mirror the curves of the snake) connecting him to medical devices. As the journalist of the German magazine Rosenkranz emphasizes in her insightful introduction, Leonard Freed's work possesses an 'honest drama' that both touches and provokes thought.



Nathan image, France 1991. First and only French-language edition.

Hardcover with dust jacket. 295 x 257 mm. 196 pages with over 165 black-and-white photographs. Front signed with a thin pen by Leonard Freed.