All About Saul Leiter

“The secret of happiness is for nothing to happen.” 

(Saul Leiter)

Living for two years in Malaysia gave me the opportunity to buy new books and meet authors who are difficult to find in Italy.

Two photographers who were among the best bought books were certainly Saul Leiter and Daido Moriyama.

But it's above all with Saul Leiter that an intense love was born. I didn't know him at all, and the type of book already caught my attention on monthly visits to my favorite bookstore in George Town: “All About Saul Leiter”, with cover and format that looked more like a Japanese novel than a photography book.

I do not believe that the digital format will ever replace the joy of reading physical books, and in my heart I hope ardently not, because the pleasure and surprise that one feels when one flips through a book for the first time is unmatched.

It was the classic love at first sight.

I could only find two books about him, this and “In My Room”, about black and white portraits and nudes of women. But it's “All About Saul Leiter” that I would recommend to everyone to buy: it's a masterpiece, for the photographs, the layout style, the essentiality, the quotes used to tell who Saul was.

“Parade”, 1954 & “Don't walk”, 1952

 

I would not like to dwell on his story here, there are many articles written about him, and also a very nice documentary film: “In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life with Saul Leiter” by Tomas Leach, from 2012.

It's enough to mention that he was born in Pittsburgh in 1923, and that at 22 years of age, in 1946, he abandoned the theological studies of the Talmud against his father's opinion and moved to New York to become a painter, bringing with him the camera that his mother gave him at the age of 12.

In 1952 he bought an apartment on Manhattan's East 10th Street and never moved from there until his death in 2013. He is considered one of the main exponents of the photography School of New York of the 1940s and 1950s, with Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, William Klein and Richard Avedon.

His relationship with painting is essential, and he has never stopped alternating the two forms of art, with a declared and profound love for the Impressionists, for Degas, Renoir, Bonnard, Matisse, to which he was inspired, and for the Japanese art, as is well told by a short essay by Pauline Vermare at the end of the book: “The New York Nabi”.

From my point of view, I believe, that few other photographers in the world I could define as romantic as him: his photographs of New York always seem muffled, without sounds, like slow-motion movie images. Even in the scenes of everyday urban life, in traffic, everything happens gracefully, every gesture or word is attenuated by snow or rain.

“It is not where it is or 

what it is that matter,

but how you see it.”

(Saul Leiter)

 

“Mannequin”, 1952

And then the color, what color! He is recognized as one of the masters of color – and in this his pictorial taste is fundamental. More than photographs they look like watercolors, in which red predominates, like a heart that beats in the lives of people who walk in the street, or take shelter under his beloved umbrellas, drink a coffee at the bar or wait at the traffic lights to cross.

Saul Leiter is there, sitting behind a shop window tarnished by humidity and rain, spying on these lives that flow outside like a river in winter, and painting them with sharp shots, very often vertically (a format little used in photography).

“A window covered with raindrops 

interests me more than 

a photograph of a famous person.”

(Saul Leiter)

 

“Horn & Hardart”, 1959

His relationship with notoriety is also intriguing. He expressly states it, his desire is not to be recognized, it's not to be important that he cares. And it is enough to see the documentary to understand his sincerity. Looking at him in action he seems almost a pensioner with a hobby of photography, almost a homeless, scruffy in his clothes, good-natured, a docile grandfather with a small camera in his hand.

I am reminded of so many photographers that I have met in all these years, armed with three, four cameras hanging on the hooks to the body, with backpacks full of lenses, visible a mile away as if there was a luminous sign on them: “the super photographer is coming”, with the ego as the logo for the perfect clothes for the occasion.

“Everything is a photo...

we live in a world today where

almost everything is a photograph.”

(Saul Leiter)

Well, Saul Leiter is completely the opposite, it's the sobriety at the service of style; and this is perhaps why he is not among the most cited and known photographers in the world, but I found that he is among the absolute favorites of a few admirers. Even his books are not easy to find.

And it is a pity.

Because in these times where appearance is a prerogative of fame, and where everything burns quickly to the rhythm of “likes” and shares on social networks, seeing how he moves, photographs, smiles kindly sitting on a bench gives dimension what art really should be: that mystery about life that only a few are able to show us, raising that patina of everyday life that prevents us from seeing its true beauty, distracted by so many exaggerated movements and words shouted too much.

Sobriety, style, beauty, feeling.

All of this is Saul Leiter.

“Paris”, 1959

 

Leiter: There are the things that are out in the open and there are the things that are hidden, and life has more to do, the real world has more to do with what is hidden, maybe. You think?
Director (off-camera): That could be true.
Leiter: You think it's true?
Director: It could be.
Leiter: It could be very true. We like to pretend that what is public is what the real world is all about.
    (from “In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life with Saul Leiter.”)

All About Saul Leiter
Saul Leiter, Margit Erb, Pauline Vermare, Motoyuki Shibata
Format:Paperback with Jacket
Size:21.0 x 14.8 cm
Extent:296 pp
Illustrations:232
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Publication date:26 July 2018
ISBN:9780500294536

Saul Leiter: “All About Saul Leiter” (Thames & Hudson, 2018)

Saul Leiter: “In My Room” (Steidl, 2018) 

'In No Great Hurry:13 Lessons in Life With Saul Leiter' Trailer | Moviefone

Italian version