Saul Leiter
“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
The American artist Saul Leiter (1923–2013) became enchanted by painting and photography as a teenager in Pittsburgh. After he relocated to New York City in 1946, his visionary imagination and tireless devotion to artistic practice pushed him to become one of the iconic photographers of the mid-twentieth century. An innate sense of curiosity made him a lifelong student of art of all kinds, and he retained his spirit of exploration and spontaneity throughout his long career, in both his fashion images and his personal work.
Find out more about him here: The Saul Leiter Foundation
Robert Frank
Considered one of the most influential figures in the history of photography, Robert Frank redefined the aesthetic of the still image via his pictures.
Soon after his emigration to New York in 1947, Alexey Brodovitch hired Frank as a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar. The position meant a lot of cross country travel and helped form Frank’s impressions of the United States.
After receiving his first Guggenheim Fellowship in 1956 (the same year as Todd Webb, but he's another story...), Frank embarked on a two-year trip across America during which he took over 28,000 pictures. Eighty-three of those images were ultimately published in Frank’s groundbreaking monograph The Americans.
First printed 1958, Frank’s unorthodox cropping, lighting, and sense of focus attracted criticism. But his work, however, was not without supporters. Beat writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg felt a kinship with Frank and his interest in documenting the fabric of contemporary society. Eventually “The Americans” jettisoned Frank into a position of cultural prominence; he became the spokesperson for a generation of photographers.