William Klein

He soon moved on to photography and achieved widespread fame as a fashion photographer for Vogue and for his photo essays on various cities. He directed feature-length fiction films, numerous short and feature-length documentaries and produced over 250 television commercials. He was awarded the Prix Nadar in 1957, the Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in 1999, and the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award at the Sony World Photography Awards in 2011. A retrospective exhibition of his work, William Klein: YES: Photographs, Paintings, Films, 1948–2013, was shown at the International Center of Photography in New York until September 15, 2022.

• Name — William Klein • Born — 19 April 1926 • Birthplace — New York City, U.S. • Died — 10 September 2022 • Place of death — Paris, France • Education — City College of New York La Sorbonne

Klein was born in New York City into an impoverished Jewish family. He graduated from high school early and enrolled at the City College of New York at the age of 14 to study sociology. He joined the U.S. Army during World War II, and was stationed in Germany and later France with the 2nd Armored Division, where he permanently settled after being discharged in 1948. In 1948, Klein enrolled at the Sorbonne, and later studied with Fernand Léger. At the time, Klein was interested in abstract painting and sculpture. In 1952, he had two successful solo exhibitions in Milan and began a collaboration with the architect Angelo Mangiarotti. Klein also experimented with kinetic art, and it was at an exhibition of his kinetic sculptures that he met Alexander Liberman, the art director for Vogue.

Klein died in Paris on September 10, 2022, aged 96.

• 2013: Without Compromise: The Cinema of William Klein, Museum of Arts and Design, New York. A retrospective on Klein's documentary filmmaking work. • 2017: William Klein: Photographs and Films, C/O Berlin, Berlin • 2022: William Klein: YES: Photographs, Paintings, Films, 1948–2013, International Center of Photography, New York, June 3 – September 15, 2022

William Klein is recorded as photographer, fashion photographer, screenwriter and director. Formation and teaching. Klein studied at Paris Faculty of Law and Economics and City College of New York. He trained under André Lhote.

He moved on to photography and achieved widespread fame as a fashion photographer for Vogue and for his photo essays on various cities. Despite having no formal training as a photographer, Klein won the Prix Nadar in 1957 for New York, a book of photographs taken during a brief return to his hometown in 1954. Klein's work was considered revolutionary for its "ambivalent and ironic approach to the world of fashion", its "uncompromising rejection of the then prevailing rules of photography" and for his extensive use of wide-angle and telephoto lenses, natural lighting and motion blur. The New York Times Katherine Knorr writes that, along with Robert Frank, Klein is considered "among the fathers of street photography, one of those mixed compliments that classifies a man who is hard to classify." Klein's most popular photographic works are Gun 1, New York (1955), The Holy family on bike (Rome, 1956), Cineposter (Tokyo, 1961), Vogue (fashion models in the streets of New York, Rome and Paris for Vogue magazine, 1963), Love on the Beat (Serge Gainsbourg album sleeve, 1984), Club Allegro Fortissimo (1990) and Autoportrait (a book of painted contact prints, 1995).

• Broadway by Light (1958). A study of Broadway by night. • Les troubles de la circulation (1962). Paris traffic jams for French TV. • Le business et la mode (1962). • Les français et la politique (1962). • Gare de Lyon (1963). • Cassius, le grand (1964–65). Film of Sonny Liston Cassius Clay fight in Miami. • Aux grands magasins with Simone Signoret (1964). • Loin du Viêt Nam (1967). Collective film with segments contributed by Klein, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, Claude Lelouch, Alain Resnais, Joris Ivens and Agnès Varda. • Festival panafricain d'Alger (1969). • Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther (1970). On Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther Party leader. • Muhammad Ali: The Greatest (1974). • Hollywood, California: A Loser's Opera (1977). • Grands soirs & petits matins (1978). May 1968 in the Latin Quarter of Paris. • The Little Richard Story (1980). • The French (1982). A documentary about the French Open tennis tournament in 1981. • Contacts (1983). Klein comments photographs by great photographers. • Ralentis (1984). • Mode in France (1984). A documentary on French fashion. • Babilée '91 (1992). A filmed ballet. • In and Out of Fashion (1994). • Messiah (1999). Based on Georg Friedrich Haendel's oratorio Messiah directed by Marc Minkowski.

• Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (1966). Satire on the fashion world (Prix Jean Vigo). With Dorothy McGowan, Delphine Seyrig, Jacques Seiler, Alice Sapritch, Philippe Noiret, Samy Frey and Roland Topor. • Mr. Freedom (1968). Satire on American Imperialism. With Delphine Seyrig, John Abbey, Donald Pleasence, Jean-Claude Drouot and Serge Gainsbourg. • L'anniversaire de Charlotte (1974). 8 mm short film for the Paris Film Festival. With Charlotte Levy, Roland Topor, les Gazolines and Coline Serreau. • The Model Couple (1977). When sociology and statistics take over everyday life. With Anémone, André Dussollier, Zouc, Jacques Boudet, Eddie Constantine and Georges Descrières.

Klein's work is held in the following public collection: • Rijksmuseum Amsterdam