The Unseen Saul Leiter

by Margit Erb (Editor), Michael Parillo (Editor), Saul Leiter (Photographer)

A thrilling trove of newly discovered color works from the photographer celebrated for his pioneering painterly vision Now firmly established as one of the world’s greatest photographers, Saul Leiter (1923–2013) was relatively little known until the 2006 publication of Saul Early Color , when he was already in his eighties. Choosing to shoot in color when black and white was the norm, Leiter portrayed midcentury New York’s street life with a gorgeous painterliness that evoked the sensuality of his Abstract Expressionist contemporaries Rothko and Newman. His studio in the East Village, where he lived from 1952 until his death in 2013, is now the home of the Saul Leiter Foundation, which has commenced a full-scale survey of his more than 80,000 works.
This volume contains works discovered through this project―specifically, color photography from slides never before published or seen by the public. It is edited by Margit Erb and Michael Parillo of the Saul Leiter Foundation, and is embellished with texts that describe how Leiter assembled his slide archive and how it is being catalogued and restored.
Saul Leiter was born in Pittsburgh in 1923. He pioneered a painterly approach to color photography in the 1940s and produced covers for fashion magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar , before largely withdrawing from public attention in the 1980s. The publication of his first collection, Early Color , by Steidl in 2006, inspired an avid “rediscovery” that led to worldwide exhibitions and the release of a documentary, In No Great 13 Lessons in Life with Saul Leiter (2014). He died in New York in 2013.

Genres: Photography, Art, Nonfiction

159 pages, Hardcover

Published October 11, 2022

Reviews

[Mai M Ibrahim · Rating 2 out of 5]

الكتاب مش اوي مقدمش صور جديدة عن الكتب التانيه
بس كانت الصور حجمها كبير ومركزه ع مجموعة الصور اللي صورها ف الشتا والثلج وخلفيتها سوداء
هصور فيديو عن كتبه والفيلم الوثائقي كمان وهنزلهم ع قناة عن الفن ع اليوتيوب 👇
@3nelfn

[MML · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent work. Saul Leiter’s artist persona is brought out in a concise manner in the intro texts and the selection of slides is the work of people who know exactly what they are doing.
And Saul Leiter’s highly artistic use of focus and framing oozes into one’s brain from the pages and pulls me into the city.
This book was a joy. (I bought 2 more Leiter books immediately).
Very very high quality curating here.

[Oni · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magic and poetic collection of works by Saul Leiter, accompanied by three solid essays written by Margit Erb and Michael Parillo. The book itself, at least the French edition published by Editions Textuel, is an art object itself. The paper, the print, even the chosen font are impeccable.
Absorb and be dazzled 😊

[Keren Xu · Rating 3 out of 5]

100ish photos selected and edited by Margrit Erb.

[Honeymoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

J'adore.
"Les improvisations libres d'un flâneur génialement alerte"

[Huw Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great collection of Saul’s colour photos. 76 new slides appear in this book - quite a small number of the 4000 colour slides he had accumulated by the time of his death.

I have read Saul’s other books. The selection is not as stunning as ‘early colour’ but the shots chosen certainly help to understand Saul’s magic of composition.

The essays are an useful accompaniment - but the “no great hurry” film and YouTube saul interviews are a better way to understand the man.


A worthwhile read and a good book for Saul fans like me, but I was a bit disappointed with the relatively small number(76) of new images. I would have hoped for 100+