William Klein's first movie, a gleeful satire on the fashion industry, underlined his reputation as a brilliant, iconoclastic photographer
William Klein is one of the giants of post-war photography: his vibrant pictorial essays on cities like Rome, Tokyo and New York are among the most influential photobooks of the 20th century. Last week it was announced that he will be honoured as the recipient of the outstanding contribution to photography category in the 2012 Sony World Photography Awards.
Klein, 83, initially trained as a painter under Fernand Léger in Paris in the 1950s, before relocating to New York and, despite having no formal training, landed a job as a fashion photographer at American Vogue. There he earned a reputation as an iconoclast, using a wide-angled lens to often surreal effect and introducing movement and energy in the form of blurred motion into his street shoots.
His time at Vogue was the inspiration for his first feature film, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? released in 1966, from which this still is taken. The film is a gleeful satire of the fashion industry starring Dorothy McGowan, a model who, legend has it, was discovered by a fashion scout among a crowd of teenagers awaiting the arrival of the Beatles at Kennedy Airport. Grayson Hall shines as the brilliantly bitchy Miss Maxwell, a magazine editor based on Diana Vreeland.
Other films followed, including the anti-imperialist Mr Freedom and an acclaimed documentary, Muhammad Ali, the Greatest. Klein returned to photography in the 1980s, but it is his earlier books, most notably Life is Good & Good For You In New York, that endure.
In October, there will be a chance to see his work in an exhibition at London's Tate Modern.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2012/apr/01/william-klein-polly-maggoo-award
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