41

WILLIAM KLEIN, (American, b. 1928), THE BRIDE, inscribed and signed "vintage print / William Klei...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:10,000.00 - 15,000.00 USD
WILLIAM KLEIN, (American, b. 1928), THE BRIDE, inscribed and signed  vintage print / William Klei...
WILLIAM KLEIN
(American, b. 1928)
THE BRIDE
inscribed and signed "vintage print / William Klein" in pencil on verso
2 artist's stamps on verso
gelatin silver print
1015/16 x 137/8 in. (27.8 x 35.2 cm)
1955
ESTIMATE: $10,000-15,000
PROVENANCE
David Grob, LONDON
Largely overlooked in the United States, William Klein's NEW YORK had a profound impact on an entire generation of European photographers. Not until 1981, when Aperture published a monograph on Klein, was his work more widely appreciated. Klein's experimental use of the medium is often compared to that of Robert Frank. But his greatest innovations may lie in the realm of photographic book design, and are clearly apparent in volumes such as ROME, MOSCOW and TOKYO.
Klein has explained the creation of his first book. "Before making the book [New York], I was doing hard-edged geometric painting in Paris. When I came back to the city in 1954, after eight years away, I decided to keep a photographic diary of my return. These were practically my first 'real photographs.' I had neither training nor complexes. By necessity and choice, I decided that anything would have to go. A technique of no taboos: blur, grain, contrast, cock-eyed framing, accidents, whatever happens. As for content: pseudo-ethnography, parody, and Dada. I was a make-believe ethnograph in search of the straightest of straight documents, the rawest snapshot, the zero degree of photography. I would document the proud New Yorkers in the same way a museum expedition would document the Kikuyus. Parody: of so-called good photography and news. Photograph a marriage like a riot, and inversely, a demonstration like a family portrait. Mix the family album with the New York Daily News. And then Dada: black humor, and absurd." (William Klein, NEW YORK, 1954-1955, Manchester, Dewi Lewis Publishing, 1995, p. 4).