New York 1954-55

by Klein, William

In 1956, William Klein's NEW YORK, one of the most important books in the history of photography, was published. The work created a veritable revolution. Breaking with the medium's taboos and traditions, Klein developed a radically new way of taking pictures, inventing a violent, graphic style combining black humour, social criticism, satire, and poetry. "For the first time, wrote the poet and critic Alain Jouffroy, photographs led the evolution of the visual rats. Klein developed practically all of the themes dealt with later by Pop Art and the New Realism...". The book whose original title was NEW YORK IS GOOD & GOOD FOR YOU became a legend, an entry in rare book catalogues... and impossible to find. Therefore, a group of six European publishers, with Japanese and American partners, planned a re-edition. The design and content of this new version are considerably changed - almost a hundred more pages and dozens of never before published pictures. Painter, photographer, movie maker, A