21/04/08: Saul Leiter
Saul Leiter was born in Pittsburgh in 1923, the son of a rabbi and distinguished Talmudic scholar.
Leiter's interest in art began in his late teens, and in 1946, when he was 23, he left the theological college he was attending in Cleveland and moved to New York City to pursue his painting.
That year he met the Abstract Expressionist painter Richard Pousette-Dart, who was experimenting with photography. Leiter's friendship with Pousette-Dart, and soon after with W. Eugene Smith, and the photography exhibitions he saw in New York, particularly Henri Cartier-Bresson at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947, inspired his growing involvement with photography.
Leiter's earliest black and white photographs show an extraordinary affinity for the medium, and by 1948 he began to work in color.
Leiter's interest in art began in his late teens, and in 1946, when he was 23, he left the theological college he was attending in Cleveland and moved to New York City to pursue his painting.
That year he met the Abstract Expressionist painter Richard Pousette-Dart, who was experimenting with photography. Leiter's friendship with Pousette-Dart, and soon after with W. Eugene Smith, and the photography exhibitions he saw in New York, particularly Henri Cartier-Bresson at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947, inspired his growing involvement with photography.
Leiter's earliest black and white photographs show an extraordinary affinity for the medium, and by 1948 he began to work in color.
