The Social Landscapes of Lee Friedlander
Washington, DC, 1962
More than 20 years later, Lee’s responses to my questions followed the same pattern. Simply put, Friedlander speaks softly, carries a small camera and lets his photographs do the talking. While this is his career-long modus operandi, consciously adhering to any convention would be unlikely.
Born in 1934, he began photographing the American “social landscape” in 1948, a term he would later coin. “It seems to me it’s my place of work. I just named it the ‘social landscape.’ It’s not—what would be the opposite—trees or forest. I was working in those days mostly in the city, like Garry Winogrand and such. It was just a description of where I work.”
Regardless of the subject matter, everything that has appeared before Friedlander’s lens over the past five decades has been captured with a distinctive vision of the world, making the seemingly ordinary just the opposite through dynamic compositions and an acute awareness of relationships and juxtapositions. There’s a fearlessness that comes through in his street photography. It requires considerable confidence to engage other denizens of the world so up close and personally through a wide-angle lens.
Born in 1934, he began photographing the American “social landscape” in 1948, a term he would later coin. “It seems to me it’s my place of work. I just named it the ‘social landscape.’ It’s not—what would be the opposite—trees or forest. I was working in those days mostly in the city, like Garry Winogrand and such. It was just a description of where I work.”
Regardless of the subject matter, everything that has appeared before Friedlander’s lens over the past five decades has been captured with a distinctive vision of the world, making the seemingly ordinary just the opposite through dynamic compositions and an acute awareness of relationships and juxtapositions. There’s a fearlessness that comes through in his street photography. It requires considerable confidence to engage other denizens of the world so up close and personally through a wide-angle lens.
Detroit, Michigan, 1964
Friedlander’s lifelong engagement with photography took root in childhood. “I had my picture taken by the local photographer in my hometown of Aberdeen, Washington when I was a little boy, maybe six or seven years old. He didn’t come out when I came into the store, so I walked in the back and he was developing a picture. It was like magic. So I always wanted to do photography after that.”
A Leica camera eventually became Friedlander’s companion while trolling the streets of urban America or strolling through its countryside, with a few notable exceptions. For his America by Car project he turned to the Hasselblad Super Wide C with a fixed 38mm Biogon lens that could capture both the window as a natural frame and the scene outside. Comprised of images taken in nearly all 50 states, this remarkable series hones in on America’s romance with the automobile and the mystique of the open road, while proffering wry commentary on the built environment in both rural and urban contexts. It’s also notable for Friedlander’s use of mirrors to divide and fragment the visual plane in surprising and revealing ways.
In 1967 Friedlander’s work was included in the New Documents exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art curated by John Szarkowski. MoMA’s director of photography would later write an essay that appeared in the second and third editions of Friedlander’s book Self Portrait about one of Friedlander’s most iconic images, “Canyon de Chelly,” taken in 1983:
A Leica camera eventually became Friedlander’s companion while trolling the streets of urban America or strolling through its countryside, with a few notable exceptions. For his America by Car project he turned to the Hasselblad Super Wide C with a fixed 38mm Biogon lens that could capture both the window as a natural frame and the scene outside. Comprised of images taken in nearly all 50 states, this remarkable series hones in on America’s romance with the automobile and the mystique of the open road, while proffering wry commentary on the built environment in both rural and urban contexts. It’s also notable for Friedlander’s use of mirrors to divide and fragment the visual plane in surprising and revealing ways.
In 1967 Friedlander’s work was included in the New Documents exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art curated by John Szarkowski. MoMA’s director of photography would later write an essay that appeared in the second and third editions of Friedlander’s book Self Portrait about one of Friedlander’s most iconic images, “Canyon de Chelly,” taken in 1983:
Gallup, New Mexico, 1998
“. . . what I was now looking at was not an artistic invention but the real Friedlander, the man himself, part cowboy, and part con man, but mostly witch doctor, the craft doubtless learned from the native Shamans of his Pacific Northwest, who were responsible for resolving conflicts and disagreements that might arise between the corporeal and spiritual spheres, and who were reasonably successful in doing so, using a variety of techniques, most of which involved trompe l’oeil of one sort or another.
“In any case it was clearly the person in question, not some metaphorical equivalent: one could recognize him by the shape of the body alone, resembling the skin of a middle-aging mountain lion, filled with rocks in place of the conventional soft organs, the interstices filled with silica, from which sprout tough, dry weeds that finally effloresce from his head, making a crown good enough for the most powerful of Shaman, and leaving a bouquet as clean as vinegar and as pungent as sage.”
The resulting exposure from the MoMA exhibition helped create an audience for what would become Friedlander’s preferred choice for presenting his images, the photo book, beginning with the publication of Work from the Same House, published in 1969. In the 48-page, 33-plate softcover book, his photographs are paired by their shapes and tones with the etchings of Jim Dine, an important collaboration between the two artists early in their respective careers. Friedlander recalled in a conversation with his daughter Anna how the two connected.
“In any case it was clearly the person in question, not some metaphorical equivalent: one could recognize him by the shape of the body alone, resembling the skin of a middle-aging mountain lion, filled with rocks in place of the conventional soft organs, the interstices filled with silica, from which sprout tough, dry weeds that finally effloresce from his head, making a crown good enough for the most powerful of Shaman, and leaving a bouquet as clean as vinegar and as pungent as sage.”
The resulting exposure from the MoMA exhibition helped create an audience for what would become Friedlander’s preferred choice for presenting his images, the photo book, beginning with the publication of Work from the Same House, published in 1969. In the 48-page, 33-plate softcover book, his photographs are paired by their shapes and tones with the etchings of Jim Dine, an important collaboration between the two artists early in their respective careers. Friedlander recalled in a conversation with his daughter Anna how the two connected.
To Those Who Made the Supreme Sacrifice, Bellows Falls, Vermont, 1971
“After I did “The Little Screens” [a 1963 photo essay] for Harper’s Bazaar, I got a letter saying, ‘I’d like to buy a print from the TV pictures,’ and it was Jim Dine. In those days I didn’t sell prints, none of us did. I probably charged him $25 or something. So I wrote back and I said, ‘Yes, but I’d like to hand it to you.’ I wanted to see who was nutty enough to pay for a print just to have it.” Asked why the pairings of his photographs and Dine’s etchings worked so well in spite of being created in different mediums: “There’s something American about both of us.”
Friedlander’s second book, Self Portrait, was published the following year, the result of another important collaboration, this time with art director/designer Marvin Israel. The cover title created with old typewriter keys was Israel’s idea; the type was appropriated directly from the cover mockup Friedlander’s wife Maria had typed out. This was the first of many books published by Friedlander’s imprint, Haywire Press, with Maria in the early days taking on the role of distributor. She would head into Manhattan, selling the books to bookstores and galleries at $5 a copy for a $2 profit. Their best customer was the Witkin Gallery, which would purchase 10 at a time.
Self Portrait reveals Friedlander’s unconventional approach to self exposure. While he is sometimes the focus of attention, more often his face and/or his figure are integrated into visually complex street scenes. Evoking his presence in mirror and window reflections or through shadowed silhouettes, he creates puzzling narratives that are surreal, sardonic, and thought-provoking. He wrote: “At first, my presence in my photos was fascinating and disturbing. But as time passed and I was more a part of other ideas in my photos, I was able to add a giggle to those feelings.”
Friedlander’s second book, Self Portrait, was published the following year, the result of another important collaboration, this time with art director/designer Marvin Israel. The cover title created with old typewriter keys was Israel’s idea; the type was appropriated directly from the cover mockup Friedlander’s wife Maria had typed out. This was the first of many books published by Friedlander’s imprint, Haywire Press, with Maria in the early days taking on the role of distributor. She would head into Manhattan, selling the books to bookstores and galleries at $5 a copy for a $2 profit. Their best customer was the Witkin Gallery, which would purchase 10 at a time.
Self Portrait reveals Friedlander’s unconventional approach to self exposure. While he is sometimes the focus of attention, more often his face and/or his figure are integrated into visually complex street scenes. Evoking his presence in mirror and window reflections or through shadowed silhouettes, he creates puzzling narratives that are surreal, sardonic, and thought-provoking. He wrote: “At first, my presence in my photos was fascinating and disturbing. But as time passed and I was more a part of other ideas in my photos, I was able to add a giggle to those feelings.”
Wilmington, Delaware, 1965
Friedlander partnered with his grandson Giancarlo Roma in April of 2015 to help run Haywire Press. Part of this association was to find a way to get the dozens of titles stocked in his home out to the public. The initial result was Friedlander First Fifty: The Collection, a 25-edition set of signed copies of Friedlander’s first 50 books, delivered to clients in five art storage boxes with a signed gelatin silver print of the cover image in a custom slipcase. Serving as a companion to the collection as well as a standalone encyclopedia of his career as seen through his books, Friedlander: First Fifty (powerHouse Books) was created. This book of books is a uniquely presented tour of Friedlander’s career through the reproduction of book covers, select photographs from the featured books and interviews with Lee and Maria, conducted by Anna and Giancarlo. In one exchange between grandfather and grandson, Friedlander commented on the diverse, often-unexpected subject matter of his photographs with typical understatement: “I just look at the world, I don’t make it.”
Books have been an integral part of Friedlander’s eclectic oeuvre since the late ’60s. “I really took to books right away,” he told Giancarlo. “There were very few photo books back then. The few that were around were great. Garry [Winogrand] saw [Walker Evans’] American Photographs at Dan Weiner’s place and called me up and said he wanted to take me to Dan’s home to show it to me. I knew it had to be something. When I ordered Walker’s book at the Strand, I waited four months and then got a postcard saying it was in. I called them and said, ‘Please don’t sell it, please hold it for me, I’ll come get it.’ I knew I might not get another chance to get it. There was nothing like it.
“The only other book was Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment, and Brassai’s book [Paris by Night] you couldn’t get. Well, there were a couple of books from the Farm Security Administration as well—Dorothea Lange and of course the Atget Weyhe book from 1930 [gallery owner Erhard Weyhe published the American edition of Atget: Photographe de Paris], that was a beautiful book. But overall I liked the combination of all the pictures following one another. I liked what books looked like. You can take a book and look at it in bed, you can sit in a chair with a book, you can take it somewhere. There’s something nice about it. I always thought books were my medium right from the beginning.”
Books have been an integral part of Friedlander’s eclectic oeuvre since the late ’60s. “I really took to books right away,” he told Giancarlo. “There were very few photo books back then. The few that were around were great. Garry [Winogrand] saw [Walker Evans’] American Photographs at Dan Weiner’s place and called me up and said he wanted to take me to Dan’s home to show it to me. I knew it had to be something. When I ordered Walker’s book at the Strand, I waited four months and then got a postcard saying it was in. I called them and said, ‘Please don’t sell it, please hold it for me, I’ll come get it.’ I knew I might not get another chance to get it. There was nothing like it.
“The only other book was Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment, and Brassai’s book [Paris by Night] you couldn’t get. Well, there were a couple of books from the Farm Security Administration as well—Dorothea Lange and of course the Atget Weyhe book from 1930 [gallery owner Erhard Weyhe published the American edition of Atget: Photographe de Paris], that was a beautiful book. But overall I liked the combination of all the pictures following one another. I liked what books looked like. You can take a book and look at it in bed, you can sit in a chair with a book, you can take it somewhere. There’s something nice about it. I always thought books were my medium right from the beginning.”
Baltimore, Maryland, 1962
Among the monographs included in Friedlander: First Fifty are Sticks and Stones, Lee Friedlander: Photographs, Letters From the People, Cherry Blossom Time in Japan, Family and At Work. In the afterword to one of his most popular monographs, Like a One-Eyed Cat: Photographs by Lee Friedlander 1956-1987, Rod Slemmons wrote: “Just when we develop a taste for Friedlander’s photographs or think that we can identify a style, a hallmark, a common tool for understanding, he changes. He refuses to follow conventions even if he established them himself.”
Friedlander’s Nudes is another book one might not expect from a photographer who entered popular culture as a street shooter. A young Madonna, before she became the mega-pop star, was among the models who appeared au naturel before Friedlander’s lens. Using a ring light and flash, he captured dispassionate, almost topographical images that are anything but salacious, and allowed his subjects to take co-ownership of the photographs through their body language and expressions.
“If today he is ‘iconic,’” Anna reflects, “I think it is because of his single-minded drive to produce, publish and exhibit photographs covering a vast array of subjects and subject matter. He always had a camera with him. There was always a flash going off. Summers were spent in a camper, crisscrossing the United States, not so our family could see the national parks and other sites—although we did—but so that my father could photograph.
Friedlander’s Nudes is another book one might not expect from a photographer who entered popular culture as a street shooter. A young Madonna, before she became the mega-pop star, was among the models who appeared au naturel before Friedlander’s lens. Using a ring light and flash, he captured dispassionate, almost topographical images that are anything but salacious, and allowed his subjects to take co-ownership of the photographs through their body language and expressions.
“If today he is ‘iconic,’” Anna reflects, “I think it is because of his single-minded drive to produce, publish and exhibit photographs covering a vast array of subjects and subject matter. He always had a camera with him. There was always a flash going off. Summers were spent in a camper, crisscrossing the United States, not so our family could see the national parks and other sites—although we did—but so that my father could photograph.
Bruno Sammartino, New York, New York, 1960
“The bottom floor of our house was dedicated to my father’s work. Every morning he went down to his darkroom/studio to begin what felt to me like a slog: working without an assistant, developing film, making contact sheets, editing them with red grease pencils, making prints—my father’s hands always smelled of hypo—and then rolling fresh film into cassettes to be ready to start shooting again.” (While Friedlander no longer prints his own images, he plays an active role in their production. These days his choice of paper is Ilford Multigrade.)
Anna continues, “My father photographed buildings, shop windows, parks, fences, animals, family, signs, flowers, trees, monuments and fashion. He did street photography, portraiture, landscapes, still lifes, nudes and still more of those self-portraits. His love of photography propelled him to turn his eye to everything that is photographable.”
Giancarlo for his part offers perceptive insights on the unique themes and resonances of his famous elder’s work and his standing in the history of the medium: “I think there’s a distinctly American quality to Lee’s work, not just in terms of the sheer diversity of the geography he’s covered, but in his sensitivity to what you might call the ‘American experience.’ There are themes associated with America—the untamed West, hero memorialization, rugged individualism, commercialism, race relations, industry—that come up over and over again in his work.
Anna continues, “My father photographed buildings, shop windows, parks, fences, animals, family, signs, flowers, trees, monuments and fashion. He did street photography, portraiture, landscapes, still lifes, nudes and still more of those self-portraits. His love of photography propelled him to turn his eye to everything that is photographable.”
Giancarlo for his part offers perceptive insights on the unique themes and resonances of his famous elder’s work and his standing in the history of the medium: “I think there’s a distinctly American quality to Lee’s work, not just in terms of the sheer diversity of the geography he’s covered, but in his sensitivity to what you might call the ‘American experience.’ There are themes associated with America—the untamed West, hero memorialization, rugged individualism, commercialism, race relations, industry—that come up over and over again in his work.
“These are things he’s clearly interested in, but he doesn’t depict them plainly as they are, nor does he have an agenda in conveying any particular message. Instead, he always seems to bring out their essential wildness, and by extension, America’s—this country is nothing if not wild. I think you could probably view his entire body of work as a sort of multi-volume love letter to America.”
Addendum
All photographs from Friedlander: First Fifty published by powerHouse Books. Special thanks to Anna Roma and Giancarlo T. Roma for their assistance in making this feature possible, and to Lee and Maria Friedlander. To see more of his work, visit haywirepress.com.
Addendum
All photographs from Friedlander: First Fifty published by powerHouse Books. Special thanks to Anna Roma and Giancarlo T. Roma for their assistance in making this feature possible, and to Lee and Maria Friedlander. To see more of his work, visit haywirepress.com.