When the photographer Saul Leiter died, in 2013, just shy of his ninetieth birthday, his East Village apartment was stacked with boxes of pictures. Because recognition, and a bracing shot of fame, had come to him late in life, he’d only begun to rouse himself from contented obscurity and sort through decades of uncatalogued work. In Leiter’s last years, previously unseen photographs, many of New York in the nineteen-fifties and sixties, appeared regularly in exhibitions and publications, but they were only a fraction of what has come to light since his death, including the images on these pages. The French painter Pierre Bonnard was a key influence, and Leiter saw the city’s streets through a Neo-Impressionist lens, often with a shop window or a mirror to provide a layer of shimmering soft focus. His take was glancing and indirect but tender—the fond regard of a lover who sees and forgives every flaw.
Hidden Depths
When Leiter agreed to work for Harper’s Bazaar, in 1958, he said, with characteristic modesty, “I thought that maybe fashion was something I
could do.” All he needed was the mix of glamour and drama he brought to this untitled image, photographed circa 1955.Photograph from Saul Leiter Estate / Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery
