A thrilling trove of newly discovered color works from the photographer celebrated for his pioneering painterly vision
Now firmly established as one of the world’s greatest photographers, Saul Leiter (1923–2013) was relatively little known until the 2006 publication of Saul Leiter: Early Color, when he was already in his eighties. Choosing to shoot in color when black and white was the norm, Leiter portrayed midcentury New York’s street life with a gorgeous painterliness that evoked the sensuality of his Abstract Expressionist contemporaries Rothko and Newman. His studio in the East Village, where he lived from 1952 until his death in 2013, is now the home of the Saul Leiter Foundation, which has commenced a full-scale survey of his more than 80,000 works. This volume contains works discovered through this project—specifically, color photography from slides never before published or seen by the public. It is edited by Margit Erb and Michael Parillo of the Saul Leiter Foundation, and is embellished with texts that describe how Leiter assembled his slide archive and how it is being catalogued and restored. Saul Leiter was born in Pittsburgh in 1923. He pioneered a painterly approach to color photography in the 1940s and produced covers for fashion magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, before largely withdrawing from public attention in the 1980s. The publication of his first collection, Early Color, by Steidl in 2006, inspired an avid “rediscovery” that led to worldwide exhibitions and the release of a documentary, In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life with Saul Leiter (2014). He died in New York in 2013.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Financial Times: How To Spend It
Baya Simons
The photographs and texture of the mundane movements of the city: a couple kissing on a rain-dampened bench, glossy taxis waiting in the street, the flash of a red dress.
Aperture
Randy Kennedy
These previously unpublished selections of 35mm slides confirm and extend the stubborn singularity of Leiter’s color language.
Esquire
Bill Shapiro
At a time when photos are disposable and Instagram gratification is coin of the realm, Unseen Saul Leiter is a book that will teach you a new way to see.
Guardian
Mee-Lai Stone
Leiter was a keen observer as life unfolded before him, somehow finding a way to reliably pluck a sublime split-second out of a mundane moment.
Boston Globe
Mark Feeney
There are hardly any notable color photographs from that era – other than Leiter’s. This makes his images of everyday Manhattan such a revelation: a black-and-white world turned into a sidewalk Oz.
Airmail
Julia Vitale
The book takes us into familiar Leiter territory—umbrellas, red dresses, rain-dappled windows—only to prove the man all the more remarkable for never seeing a thing the same way twice.
TIME
Kim Bubello
It is a revelatory and colossal archival project that allows even Leiter’s enthusiasts to discover him all over again.
photo-eye
Blake Andrews
A gift to anyone generally who enjoys strong street work. For Leiter die-hards and completists, it will be required reading.
Brooklyn Rail
Paul Maziar
The photographs in Unseen reveal a delight in the local, the close-at-hand, the particular—and a constant immersion in and attention to the world as it is.
Frames
W. Scott Olsen
The Unseen Saul Leiter is one of those books that brings fresh evidence of talent and love.
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Friends, we couldn't be prouder to be partnering this month with the ICP Bookstore at NYC's leading institution for photography and visual culture, the International Center of Photography. Throughout the month of December, we'll be celebrating our history in photobook publishing by highlighting new and classic photobooks from across our thirty year history, alongside an array of rare and signed books from our archive. continue to blog
Saturday, December 10 at 3PM, please join Artbook | D.A.P. and ICP | International Center for Photography for the launch of The Unseen Saul Leiter, published by D.A.P. Authors Margit Erb and Michael Parillo of the Saul Leiter Foundation will present and discuss images from the book, followed by a Q&A and a reception in the bookstore. continue to blog
Featured image is reproduced from The Unseen Saul Leiter—a labor of love that we are very proud to have published, drawn from the astonishing, overwhelming and previously unarchived, unpublished slide archive of the Saul Leiter Foundation. As we leave the year 2022 behind us (maybe more readily than we would have liked) and move with great optimism into 2023, we find inspiration in this anecdote from Saul Leiter Foundation director Margit Erb's essay. "Early one morning, around the time I was writing this text, I had a dream about Saul. I have had many recurring dreams since he passed, and not all of them good. Some of them are full of anxiety-provoking events, like his studio is full of water and his belongings are floating up to my chin while I frantically try to rescue everything. Or he has returned to the studio and really hates the clean windows, and then he starts packing everything up in a fury. But in this particular dream I see Saul, and I am falling over in my own tears, in happiness that he's back on the planet. My heart bursts with joy. We pat each other on the shoulder and cry and laugh sweetly. We feel content and peaceful together. And then I remember the book—this very book! My joy turns to pure excitement. 'You have to see the incredible images we found for your new book,' I say. 'So many, you won't believe it. We're in the final stages of selecting. There's still time to choose. Will you take a look?' At that point in the dream Saul just shakes his head and smiles. 'No,' he says, 'that won't be necessary. Surprise me.'" continue to blog
Featured spreads are from The Unseen Saul Leiter—new this week from D.A.P. The product of the Saul Leiter Foundation's recent full-scale survey of the 80,000+ works left behind in the photographer's East Village studio at the time of his death, this superb 160-page gem selects 76 of the most evocative, poetic images from approximately 10,000 slides that have never before been published or seen by the public. "I have spent much of my life bearing witness to Saul Leiter bearing witness," SLF founder and director Margit Erb writes. "I have looked through his camera eye. I have peered over his shoulder while he photographed and edited. And lucky for me, I have walked by his side on many journeys in the final years of his life. His images are so vividly set in my mind that I feel as if I have experienced the very moments they depict. Saul and I were close friends for over eighteen years, and his images have been orbiting around me for much longer than that. I am still endlessly surprised by his audacity, and that is precisely why I love him more than ever." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 8.5 x 11 in. / 160 pgs / 75 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $55.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $77 ISBN: 9781636810683 PUBLISHER: D.A.P. AVAILABLE: 10/11/2022 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by D.A.P.. Edited with text by Margit Erb, Michael Parillo.
A thrilling trove of newly discovered color works from the photographer celebrated for his pioneering painterly vision
Now firmly established as one of the world’s greatest photographers, Saul Leiter (1923–2013) was relatively little known until the 2006 publication of Saul Leiter: Early Color, when he was already in his eighties. Choosing to shoot in color when black and white was the norm, Leiter portrayed midcentury New York’s street life with a gorgeous painterliness that evoked the sensuality of his Abstract Expressionist contemporaries Rothko and Newman. His studio in the East Village, where he lived from 1952 until his death in 2013, is now the home of the Saul Leiter Foundation, which has commenced a full-scale survey of his more than 80,000 works.
This volume contains works discovered through this project—specifically, color photography from slides never before published or seen by the public. It is edited by Margit Erb and Michael Parillo of the Saul Leiter Foundation, and is embellished with texts that describe how Leiter assembled his slide archive and how it is being catalogued and restored.
Saul Leiter was born in Pittsburgh in 1923. He pioneered a painterly approach to color photography in the 1940s and produced covers for fashion magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, before largely withdrawing from public attention in the 1980s. The publication of his first collection, Early Color, by Steidl in 2006, inspired an avid “rediscovery” that led to worldwide exhibitions and the release of a documentary, In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life with Saul Leiter (2014). He died in New York in 2013.
