William Klein

1926 — 2022

Describing the American artist William Klein in a nutshell is not easy, since he is a photographer, painter, graphic designer, filmmaker and author. Today he is best known for his photographs, although for a long time he did not even call himself a photographer. Known to many are the photographs of his hometown New York in the 1950s. His photos showed the city honestly and unvarnished – as a place of racism, aggression and as a place where people flaunted their wealth.

Klein challenged prevailing notions of "good photography" in a new and unprecedented way. His photographs of the 1950s were unusual for the time: grainy, out-of-focus, high-contrast photos – qualities that were generally considered flaws in the popular photography community. William Klein's work is in the collections of major institutions around the world that have dedicated numerous exhibitions to him, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Modern.