In 1952, American photographer Saul Leiter set up a studio on East 10th Street back when the East Village was just that – an obscure outpost for bohemian life that drew artists, jazz musicians, beatniks, and other bon vivants who sought affordable rents so that they could live and make art.
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Leiter, who was making his name as an integral figure in the New York school of photography that includes Helen Levitt, Lisette Model, Weegee, Robert Frank, and Diane Arbus, embraced the tough-minded humanism of city life that allowed him to create sharp, telling encounters along the streets of New York.
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But up in his studio, something else was taking place — a quiet, contemplative series of black and white nudes made over a period of 30 years wholly unlike the fashion shots he made for the pages of Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, and Elle. “It’s almost like they were a relief from his professional work,” writes Carole Naggar in the introduction to Saul Leiter: In My Room (Steidl).
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