“Street photographer. Documentary filmmaker. Painter. Fiction filmmaker. Abstract photographer. Writer. Fashion Photographer. Illustrator. Maker of books. Designer of exhibitions. To have made original and influential work in just one of these fields would have been enough to secure William Klein a place in any canon of the visual arts. To have succeeded in them all, on his own terms, and to have sustained a creative output for over six decades, is remarkable”. (David Campany, International Center of Photography, New York)
Born in Harlem, NY in 1926, William Klein roamed the museums of New York as a teenager, becoming fascinated by European avant-garde painting from an early age. Europe came closer when he joined the army in 1946 and was stationed in Germany. It was here that he won his first camera playing poker. Two years later, he moved to Paris, the city that would become his home. He studied painting under Fernand Léger, developing his own unique, abstract style, which led him to abstract photography. In the summer of 1954, Alexander Liberman, the legendary art director of American Vogue, saw William Klein's abstractions at an exhibition in Paris, and by the fall, William Klein had travelled to New York at Liberman's invitation. Once there, William Klein began working for American Vogue as his “day job”, but in his spare time he roamed the streets of the city with his camera. In 1955, he published his first book, titled New York. 1954.55, which is now considered one of the most important publications in the history of photography. In 1956, he went to Rome to assist Federico Fellini with his film Nights of Cabiria. While filming was delayed, Klein took the opportunity to explore Roman life and the city’s streets and squares. He published his photographs in 1959 in the now legendary book Rome. While in Rome, he also received a commission from Alexander Liberman to photograph fashion in a “realistic way.” Liberman recognized that social change also required a “new spirit” in fashion photography, and who better to achieve this than William Klein? Klein began photographing models “on the street,” which led to his famous 1960 photograph Nina + Simone, taken on the Piazza di Spagna in Rome for the April issue of American Vogue. Simone D'Aillencourt and Nina Devos modelled the latest collection by the young Italian fashion designer, Roberto Capucci. Shot from a distance with a telephoto lens, William Klein had the models walk across the zebra crossing amid the chaos of the busy street, surrounded by passers-by and a Vespa that happened to be driving by. The geometric elegance of Capucci’s designs corresponded with the geometry of the big city. William Klein's fashion photographs were always both spontaneous and precise. «I accepted the obligation of showing the clothes. Sharp, all the buttons, pleats and whatever. As long as I did that, I found I could do pretty much what I wanted with the rest – backgrounds, attitudes, situations (…). Whatever, I guess the editors didn’t care as long as the reader didn’t flip the page too fast.” (Willam Klein)
©2025, Birgit Filzmaier