Beauty and The Street The Photographs An

BEAUTY AND THE STREET: THE PHOTOGRAPHS
AND FILMS OF WILLIAM KLEIN
APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:
________________________________________
Scott Sherer, Ph.D., Chair
________________________________________
Teresa Eckmann, Ph.D.
________________________________________
Jeffrey Halley, Ph.D.
Accepted: _________________________________________
Dean, Graduate School
Copyright 2014 Vanessa Ryan Langton
All Rights Reserved
DEDICATION
With all my love and gratitude, I dedicate this thesis to my husband Christopher, and our
children Ethan and Erin, and to my mother Karen, for encouraging my love of art and art
history.
by
VANESSA RYAN LANGTON, B.F.A.
THESIS
Presented to the Graduate Faculty of
The University of Texas at San Antonio
in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements
for the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS IN ART HISTORY
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO

College of Liberal and Fine Arts
Department of Art and Art History
December 2014
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Dr. Scott Sherer, my Thesis Advisor, for expanding my outlook
regarding art history throughout my graduate experience at the University of Texas at San
Antonio. Material presented in your classroom addresses more than aesthetics, it addresses the
theory and ethics involved in creating art that provided me with a renewed way to look at art.
To Dr. Teresa Eckmann, my Thesis Reader: I am grateful for your guidance and
knowledge not only for this thesis, for my entire experience as a graduate student. Your courses
regarding Latin American art were among the best I took over the course of my graduate
experience and provided me with a new personal interest in that genre.
To Dr. Jeffrey Halley, my Thesis Reader and sociology expert: thank you for your
valuable recommendations, which enriched the final draft of this project.
I am greatly indebted to David Campany, internationally renowned art historian and
curator who granted me treasured information and photographs regarding William Klein.
December 2014
iv
Vanessa Ryan Langton, M.A.

The University of Texas at San Antonio, 2014
Supervising Professor: Scott Sherer, Ph.D.
William Kleins interest in the grittiness of urban life laid the groundwork for his career
as a street photographer, fashion photographer for Vogue magazine, and as an avant-garde
filmmaker. Kleins body of work addressed the mass medias role in postwar society with his
depiction of ordinary people in compositions that blurred distinctions between everyday life and
high culture aesthetics. Each genre that Klein utilizes, the photobook, fashion photography,
avant-garde film, share and develop ideas concerning contemporary consumer society. This
thesis explores Kleins confrontational acknowledgment of mass media ideologies and its
powerful methods that penetrate daily life.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iv
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................v
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................1
Chapter One: Street Photography ..................................................................................................15
Chapter Two: Fashion Photography ..............................................................................................39
Chapter Three: Avant-Garde Film .................................................................................................60
Conclusion .....................................................................................................................................84
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................154
Vita
vi
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 William Klein in his studio with son Pierre, two years old. Paris, 1965. ................2
Figure 2 William Klein, Moving Diamonds, 1953 .................................................................5
Figure 3 William Klein, Domus magazine covers, 1952-1960 ..............................................5
Figure 4 New York front cover and caption booklet ...............................................................6
Figure 5 William Klein, Barns and houses, Island of Walcheren in Holland, Vogue, April
1954..........................................................................................................................6
Figure 6 William Klein, New Photo-Graphic Eye: William Klein, Vogue, November 15,
1954....................................................................................................................6, 38
Figure 7 Baron De Meyer, unpublished photograph for Vogue, 1919 ...................................8
Figure 8 George Hoyningen-Huene, Harpers Bazaar, May 1945 ........................................8
Figure 9 Richard Avedon, Junior Bazaar, September 1946 ............................................8, 48
Figure 10 William Klein, Antonia, Simone Daillencourt, Vogue, 1961 ..................................9
Figure 11 William Klein, Anne Ste Marie, New York, Vogue, 1962.................................9, 45
Figure 12 William Klein, Reflecting colour changes: these spring fabrics, Vogue,
1957..................................................................................................................10, 43
Figure 13 William Klein, Evelyn Tripp, Paris, Vogue, 1958 ...........................................10, 44
Figure 14 Eugene Atget, Children Playing, Luxembourg Gardens, Paris, 1898 ...................15
Figure 15 Eugene Atget, Storefront, Avenue des Gobelins, 1925 ..........................................15
Figure 16 Robert Frank, Canal Street New Orleans, 1956 ....................................................16
Figure 17 William Klein, Blacks + Pepsi, Harlem, New York, New York, 1955 ..................16
Figure 18 William Klein, Somewhere on Broadway (in front of Gimbels), New York,
New York, 1955 ......................................................................................................19
vii
Figure 19 William Klein, Trace of White Balls on Black, Paris, 1953 ..................................20
Figure 20 William Klein, Big Face in the Crowd, New York, New York, 1955 ....................25
Figure 21 Robert Frank, ElevatorMiami Beach, The Americans, 1955 .............................26
Figure 22 Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rome, Italy (Children paying cowboy with guns), 1951 ..28
Figure 23 William Klein, All over, New York, New York, 1955 ...........................................28
Figure 24 William Klein, Candy Store, Amsterdam Avenue, New York, New York, 1955 ...29
Figure 25 William Klein, Super-market, Broadway, and 72nd Street, New York, New York,
1955........................................................................................................................29
Figure 26 William Klein, 4 Men in Caf, Oil on canvas, 1949 ..............................................31
Figure 27 William Klein, 4 Men in Caf, (Close-up) Oil on canvas, 1949 ............................31
Figure 28 William Klein, Fifth Avenue, New York, New York, 1955....................................31
Figure 29 New York caption booklet front cover ...................................................................31
Figure 30 William Klein, No Mans Land, New York, New York, 1955 ...............................32
Figure 31 William Klein, Foreground, the midtown docks, New York, New York, 1955 .....34
Figure 32 William Klein, Wherein the ladies, Christmas shopping, New York, New York,
1955........................................................................................................................38
Figure 33 William Klein, New Photo-Graphic Eye: William Klein, Vogue,
November 15, 1954 ................................................................................................39
Figure 34 William Klein, Vogues Eye View of Stretching Time, Vogue,
January 1, 1961 ......................................................................................................43
Figure 35 William Klein, The High-Keyed Coat, Vogue, July 1, 1958 ..............................45
Figure 36 Richard Avedon, Homage to Manasci, Harpers Bazaar, September 1957 .........50
Figure 37 William Klein, Simone + Nina, Piazza di Spagna, Vogue, 1960 ..........................50
viii
Figure 38 William Klein, Simone + Nina, Piazza di Spagna, Vogue, 1960 ..........................50
Figure 39 William Klein, Simone Daillencourt wearing Fabiani, Vogue, 1960 ...................52
Figure 40 William Klein, Simone Daillencourt wearing Fabiani, Vogue, 1960 ...................55
Figure 41 William Klein, Simone Daillencourt wearing Fabiani, (unpublished) Vogue,
1960........................................................................................................................56
Figure 42 William Klein, Pepsi bottle cap, Broadway by Light, 1958...................................65
Figure 43 William Klein, Layered neon signs, Broadway by Light, 1958 .............................65
Figure 44 William Klein, Men change light bulbs, Broadway by Light, 1958 ......................66
Figure 45 William Klein, Juxtaposed signs, Broadway by Light, 1958 .................................67
Figure 46 William Klein, Street collage, Broadway by Light, 1958 ......................................68
Figure 47 William Klein, Street collage, Broadway by Light, 1958 ......................................69
Figure 48 William Klein, WALK, Broadway by Light, 1958 ............................................69
Figure 49 William Klein, Kleenex Pops Up! Broadway by Light, 1958 ............................69
Figure 50 William Klein, You Can Be Broadway by Light, 1958..................................69
Figure 51 William Klein, Planters Peanuts mascot, Broadway by Light, 1958 ....................70
Figure 52 William Klein, Men changing marquis letters, Broadway by Light, 1958 ............70
Figure 53 William Klein, Signs reflected in a street puddle, Broadway by Light, 1958........70
Figure 54 William Klein, Signs reflected on a car surface, Broadway by Light, 1958 ..........71
Figure 55 William Klein, Dawn, Broadway by Light, 1958 ..................................................71
Figure 56 William Klein, Beehive structure, fashion show, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?
1966........................................................................................................................72
Figure 57 William Klein, Aluminum dress, fashion show, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?
1966........................................................................................................................72
ix
Figure 58 William Klein, Put some base on it, fashion show, Who Are You, Polly
Maggoo? 1966 .......................................................................................................73
Figure 59 William Klein, Paris is dead, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966 .......................73
Figure 60 William Klein, Keep the shaving cream! Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?
1966........................................................................................................................74
Figure 61 William Klein, Polly visits Borrowdine, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966 .....77
Figure 62 William Klein, Important expression, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966..........80
Figure 63 William Klein, Polly and Prince Igor fly over Paris, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?
1966........................................................................................................................80
Figure 64 Gregoire and Polly on television, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966 ................80
Figure 65 William Klein, Jean Jacques news desk, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966 .....81
Figure 66 William Klein, Gregoires family watching Jean Jacques, Who Are You, Polly
Maggoo? 1966 .......................................................................................................81
x
INTRODUCTION
After eight years of living in Paris, William Klein (b. 1928) returned to New York City
in 1954, immediately struck by the influence of mass media and commodity culture within the
citys streets. He declared that his eyes were popping out of his head.1 In a trance and
equipped with a camera, Klein began a journey that documented and questioned the vigorous
influence of commercial mass media. The mass media reached large audiences through attractive
forms and witty text that worked together to generate popular representations of society, whether
these representations are imaginary, genuine, or in between.2 The most important mass media
outlets that reach society in large magnitudes include radio, television, newspapers, magazines,
and motion pictures.3 Once he reached New York, Klein gave up his interest in painting to work
entirely within the street photography genre. He utilized those same models in 1958 as an
approach to fashion photography. He exposed the fashion industrys fractures before turning in
1966 to focus on an avant-garde critique of commodity culture and visual representation through
film.
This thesis explores Kleins acknowledgment of mass media ideologies that penetrate
daily life and his confrontational acknowledgment of the mass medias powerful methods
through an approach that refers to those methods. In street photography, fashion photography,
and film, Kleins commentary regarding the mass media develops through bold experimental
approaches to these art forms. The following chapters address multiple visual platforms utilized
by Klein to create optical tension between his vision of the mass media and the messages the
mass media broadcasted to society.
1
John Heilpern. William Klein: Photographs. Millerton, N.Y.: Aperture, 1981, 13.
2
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking. New York: Oxford University Press. 152.
3
Ibid, 152.
1
His work appropriated popular imagery found within post-war New York City,
television, and periodicals, and used the imagery in his photographs and film, where he
interrogated the mass medias corrupting effect and increasing impact on post-war society. As a
formally trained artist, Klein approached photography and film aesthetics differently than most
photographers active during the 1950s and 1960s. His awareness of qualities that make a
compelling composition made his spontaneous moments appeared choreographed. His early
photobooks adhered to a snapshot aesthetic that played on surprise. His fashion photographs for
Vogue paired his energetic street photography style with simulacra elements possessed within
the fashion model figure. His films embodied all components seen within both street and fashion
photography, and sets it to motion with scripted dialog that comments on the mass medias
prowess.
Aware that viewers recognized popular logos and slogans, Klein manipulated their
spectacular nature by integrating their powerful messages into his work to comment on the mass
media. Klein framed recognizable sights and created new meanings for viewers that made his
questions relevant to those who saw these identical images daily. While constructing spectacles
from popular imagery and ideologies, Klein maintained that the mass media intentionally
avoided neutrality and harbored intentions to create new desires among spectators. This thesis
concludes by recognizing that Kleins body of work continuously challenges the capitalist
system.
Klein grew-up near Harlem and never felt a part of the fabled American dream.
Excluded as the poor kid with rich relatives4 and exposed to anti-Semitic brashness, Klein
escaped incessant disapproval and developed an affinity for films, drawing, and painting. The
4
Kleins extended family were powerful corporation lawyers and part owners of the film company Twentieth
Century-Fox. Kleins father lost everything in the 1929 stock market crash and began selling insurance. (Ibid, 11)
2
Museum of Modern Art became his home-away-from-home where he viewed art exhibitions
and watched films. He graduated high school at fourteen and enrolled at the City College of New
York to study sociology, but he joined the United States Army a year before graduation and
served as a radio operator on horseback in Germany.5 Though his formal studies at the City
College were brief, his fascination with sociology manifested itself regularly throughout his
career.
Kleins artistic career began successfully with graphic abstract geometrical paintings that
maintained dialog with the popular international modernist abstract expressionist movement
(Figure 1). After fulfilling his military service with the Army in Germany, Klein headed to Paris.
He was one of twenty-five enlisted service members accepted into the Sorbonne through the
Franco-American Friendship program established by the army. 6 In Paris, Klein studied with
Cubist painter and sculptor Fernand Legr, the first painter to confront modern urban reality. 7
Legr urged his students to acquire inspiration away from galleries, observe the city streets, look
at the people, and collaborate with architects. 8 Klein also studied briefly with Andr Lhote,
whose alumni included photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson.9 Lger had the most profound
influence on Klein overall.
Not too long after Klein picks up his first Rolleiflex camera, won in a poker game during
his military enlistment in Germany, Cartier-Bresson publishes The Decisive Moment (1952). The
Decisive Moment became the widely accepted aesthetic guide among photographers during the
5
Heilpern, 13.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid, 7.
8
Paulina del Paso. William Klein Regis Dialogue with Paulina del Paso. Interview, Paulina del Paso. (June 26,
2009; Minneapolis: Regis Foundation.), Film. http://www.walkerart.org/channel/2009/william-klein-regis-dialogue-
with-paulina-del.
9
Peter Hamilton. The Man from the Future: Interview with William Klein. British Journal of Photography.
Oct. 2012. 10.
3
1950s. Cartier-Bresson explained the importance of capturing a particular moment by removing
the photographers presence and refraining from influencing the subjects movements or the
formal composition in which they were embedded.10 At no point was the photographer to
intrude on unfolding events, instead he was encouraged to maintain boundaries between himself
and his subject. Cartier-Bresson sought discretion and avoided contact with the subjects he
photographed. Never using camera flashes, Cartier-Bresson embraced unobtrusive methods
wholly, and went out of his way to remain unrecognized by his subjects.11 Similar to Klein,
Cartier-Bressons images were never premeditated and relied completely on unplanned
moments. However, Klein, in contrast, embraced spontaneity, encouraged chaos, and relished the
outcome.
Klein rejects Cartier-Bressons concepts by introducing his own aesthetics, which include
using the camera as a weapon to question and challenge the post-war society. Kleins aesthetics
were violent and personal. He experimented with flash, wide-angle, grab shots, abstraction,
blur, close-up, accidents, deformations, harsh printing, special layouts, and inking and used the
tele-photo lens to gather as much physical information as possible.12Art and film historians agree
that Kleins innovative vision and technique pushed the photographic genre forward. Their
writings occasionally mention Kleins fascination with consumerism promoted by the mass
media and the changing social environment the mass media affected. Kleins photographs from
the mid-1950s recognize shifting power relationships between society and capitalism, beginning
in his street photography and then spilling into his later work in fashion photography and
10
Clement Cheroux. Henri Cartier-Bresson. New York: Abrams, 2008. 94.
11
Ibid, 95.
12
Heilpern, 7.
4
experimental films. Ironically, Klein used a second-hand Leica that previously belonged to
Cartier-Bresson for the New York photos.13
Kleins career, marked by serendipitous moments, began in a 1952 group exhibition held
at the Galleria Del Milione in Milan, Italy. 14 The Galleria Del Miliones intentions were to break
away from the old European styles and discover fresh talent. Kleins work attracted the attention
and a commission from successful Italian architect Angelo Mangiarotti attending the show. Klein
stumbled upon his signature aesthetic while installing his painted murals as room dividers for
Mangiarottis apartment in Milan.15 Mangiarotti asked Klein to adapt his paintings into large
reversible panels that could move or divide an area. During installation, Klein captured a
distorted and blurring effect with his Rolleiflex camera as one of the panels pivots on its axis.
Klein had spun one of the panels during a long exposure that captured the panels movement
through time.
Captivated by the outcome, Klein pushed this discovery and explored this phenomenon
further by setting up a darkroom in an effort to re-create the accidental time exposures. Klein
cut geometric holes into black cardboard and then projected light through the cutouts while
simultaneously moving the shapes at different speeds over photographic paper that left a
geometrical time exposure. This resulted in Moving Diamonds, 1953 (Figure 2). Klein called this
process abstract pictograms16 which he described as drawing with light. 17 The projections
were controlled and the shapes, depending on the exposure and amount of light utilized, were
black with shades of gray. Klein photographed the action and processed the effects into enlarged
photomurals. Klein continued experimentation with his newfound techniques and developed
13
Cheroux, 98.
14
Klein On Klein: A Conversation with David Campany. Foam Magazine. 102.
15
William Klein. ABC. New York: Harry N. Abrams. 2013, 3.
16
David Campany. William Kleins Way. William Klein: ABC. New York: Harry N. Abrams. 2013, 4.
17
5
them into a monumental part of his style. He never received formal photography training. His
training, self-guided in part by studying theoretical publications, consisted of Laszlo Moholy-
Nagys Vision in Motion and Gyorgy Kepess The New Landscape along with photograph books
by Walker Evans.18
Kleins pictograms appeared on several covers of Domus (Figure 3), an Italian
architecture and design periodical, and in a Paris group show, Le Salon des Realities Nouvelles in
1953. The Paris group show proved beneficial for Klein. American Vogue Editor Alexander
Liberman, visiting Paris to view the fashion shows, saw the exhibition, and invited Klein to look
him up the next time he was in New York, perhaps to work for Vogue magazine.19 In 1954, Klein
returned to New York City to pursue a new architectural-sculptural technique presented by
Corning Glass, a company that just introduced a new process designed to allow images to
transfer into the mass of glass, and not just the surface.20 Klein believed this process would
benefit his abstract images, but the kilns used to produce the transfers could not accommodate
the large sizes Klein desired for his work.21
In the autumn of 1954, after the Corning Glass idea fell through, Klein met with
Liberman. He pitched the Vogue editor a new project idea that involved documenting Kleins
return to New York City in a photographic essay. Chapter One discusses in depth Kleins career-
defining and innovative photobook titled Life is Good and Good For You in New York: Trance
Witness Revels (Figure 4) published in 1956. Approved by Liberman and financed by American
Vogue, the New York book began with the intent of appearing in American Vogue as Kleins
first feature story in the magazine.
18
Ibid.
19
Ibid.
20
Hamilton, 10.
21
Ibid.
6
Kleins work appeared in Vogue twice prior to arriving in New York. The first
appearance in April 1954 was a photo of Piet Mondrians refuge during World War I, a
farmhouse located in Zeeland, just off the Dutch coast.22 Kleins photograph echoes Mondrians
structured paintings and considers the all-encompassing de Stijl concept by converting the
farmhouse into a painterly and thoughtfully designed composition (Figure 5). The article
accompanying the photo accurately predicts the reoccurring theme attached to Kleins
forthcoming works and describes his photography as a device to record and interpret reality
converting actuality into abstraction.23 Vogue again foretells Kleins oeuvre when his work
appears a second time that same year as the New Photo-Graphic Eye (Figure 6) in the
November issue. The article describes Kleins images as achieving graphic rhythms, sharp
accents, strange and satisfying forms.24
Vogue decides not to publish Kleins pictorial journal claiming that the New York photos
were too radical for American audiences. Kleins vision contained wide angle distortions, blur,
unconventional focus, over and under exposure, quick reactions, accidents and provocations. 25
His photographs showed viewers a slum and fearless portraits of a crumbling New York City
that succumbed to the influential mass media, even though New York residents denied this fact.
Klein bends reality, shatters the Big Apple fantasy, and forces New York City away from its
self-proclaimed title the greatest city in the world. Kleins camera recorded subjects reactions
to himself as well as his reaction to them.26
22
Heilpern, 13.
23
Mondrian Real-Life: Zeeland Farms, Vogue Magazine, Apr 1, 1954, 134-135.
http://search.proquest.com/docview/904330260?accountid=7122
24
New Photo-Graphic Eye: William Klein, Vogue Magazine, Nov 15, 1954, 118-119.
25
Campany, William Kleins Way, 5.
26
Martin Harrison. Appearances: Fashion Photography Since 1945. New York: Rizzoli, 1991. 97.
7
According to influential photographer and curator John Szarkowski, Kleins New York
imagery was perhaps the most uncompromising of their time. His pictures werent that easy to
like when they were new.27 Vogues decision forced Klein to shop elsewhere for a publisher
thus inspiring him to convert six months of work into a photobook. Vogue originally intended
Kleins New York photographs to appear within its pages as a short photo diary. He designed a
maquette used for presentation to other publishers. Unable to find a willing American publisher,
Klein headed back to Europe to try his luck there.
Klein found a publisher in France with friend, filmmaker, and future collaborator Chris
Marker. Marker just started up Le Petite Planete Imprint, a new division of the Parisian
publishing house Editions Du Seuil that produced a variety of travel books circulated throughout
Europe and parts of Asia.28 Life is Good and Good For You in New York: Trance Witness Revels
contained Kleins vision from concept to completion. Klein created the layout and arranged the
typography along with furnishing writings that described each image housed in a separate,
removable pamphlet that accompanied the book. The New York book established distribution
and acceptance in London, Rome, and Paris where the book won the Prix Nadar the year
following publication, but the completed book never reached American audiences until many
decades later.
Even though American Vogue passed on the New York photos, the relationship between
Klein and Vogue magazine remained unbroken for ten years. Liberman believed in Kleins
talent, knowing it could suit Vogues tastes if Klein were given time to develop his style further.
Chapter Two describes Kleins innovative fashion photography. The earliest commercial fashion
photographs date as far back as 1890 and were literal representations of garments displayed on a
27
Cheroux, 97.
28
8
static and mannequin-like figure.29 Publications opted for garment illustrations until 1930,
when fashion photography became a real profession and replaced illustrations and fashion
drawings.30 Fashion photography remained stiffly composed (Figure 7 and 8) until 1945, when
photographer Richard Avedon filled his imagery with physical movement seen in the pages of
Harpers Bazaar (Figure 9). Fashion photographers began shaping the medium into a means that
only marginally related to the need to sell dresses. 31 By the time Klein began working with
Vogue, fashion photography finally understood that it could create a commentary about its
subject matter. Post-war fashion editorial stories allowed photographers liberation from strict
rules since the editors and art directors possessed creative liberties to create an attractive and
contemporary periodical that appealed to readers.32
Klein was responsible for an aesthetic shift within fashion photography in the late 1950s.
He introduced the wide-angle and long focal-length lenses along with the use of an open flash
and multiple exposures. He combined these techniques, also used in the New York photos, with
the same sarcasm and flippant attitude embedded into the New York book. Knowing nothing
about fashion, Klein admits that his concepts came first and fashion was an afterthought. 33 His
camera lens scrutinized cultural codes embedded within fashion and functioned as a sociological
device. Kleins expressive forms were completely infatuated with creating imagery that
eschewed traditional codes. Klein brought into fashion photography his modernist eye acquired
from Legrs teachings. He combined fashion with taboo commentary and used the city streets as
the location (Figure 10). American fashion magazines never placed a dark skinned model within
its publication during the 1950s. Klein boldly positioned two models next to an urban barbershop
29
Harrison, Appearances, 10.
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid, 7.
32
Ibid, 15.
33
Ibid.
9
window that featured an unknown black male seated behind the glass directly addressing the
camera lens. Vogue, unpleased with the image, cropped the composition and eliminated the
mans presence. Heilpern explains that Klein places glimpses of himself within the composition
including hybrids of the uncompromising and expedient, aggressiveness and fun, innocence and
confusion within the smart guy, a sense of wonder at what the world has come to. 34 Kleins
fashion photography reveals an outsiders commentary about fashion.
Klein played on the fact that he created imagery that encouraged manufactured ideologies
introduced to Vogue readers, similar to the persistent slogans and advertisements that littered the
New York streets. Fashion belonged to the media machine and Klein used this opportunity to
alter the machines visual output. First, he rejected the studio atmosphere, preferring the tempo
and tension found in the streets. Next, he placed the models into impulsive situations,
encouraging interaction with real life and real people.35 Models wore haute couture into the
streets disorder and muck, surrounded by obnoxious mass media signs and American pop
cultural artifacts that Klein abhorred (Figure 11). Klein reveled in the reactions, by both models
and the unsuspecting public, caught by the camera. Liberman expressed that nothing like Klein
had happened before, acknowledging the photographers unique approach to fashion
photography.36
His work at Vogue did not begin with straight fashion shots, but instead inside the studio
producing formal head portraits and experimental still life fashion stories for the magazine. 37
Fashion photography enabled Klein further opportunities, regardless of material or location, to
manipulate reality. A story photographed by Klein features spring fabrics in a myriad of seasonal
34
Heilpern, 9.
35
David Campany. Ninety Seconds. William Klein: Paintings, Etc. Rome: Contrasto Books. 2012. 10.
36
Heilpern, 15.
37
10
colors in a surreal presentation. Each fabric swatch arranged tonally into a fantastic linear color
scheme shifts into skewed watery reflections (Figure 12). Klein manipulates the structured fabric
shapes and colors by coercing the mundane fabrics to act as an artwork. This photo demonstrates
Kleins avant-gardist tendencies as he appreciates experimental qualities attached to the
photography medium38 and rejects taking a straight shot of the fabric swatches. Knowing how
straight fashion magazines presented material, as they were considerably tame in the mid-1950s,
Klein brought his defiant vision into the portraits he photographed. In 1956, Klein photographed
a series intended to feature hat trends, wound up producing one of his iconic images. He
photographed an unapologetic close-up of a models face as she smoked a cigarette allowing the
smoke to curl around her face and the hat (Figure 13). The editors, not entirely pleased with the
result, complained of the model smoking with an ungloved hand and pulling on the cigarette
butt like sailor.39 This image found a place in all international issues of Vogue except for
American Vogue.40
After his relationship with Vogue ended, Klein rejected photography temporarily and
concentrated on fulltime filmmaking. Chapter Three focuses primarily on two films Klein
created prior to his departure from photography; Broadway by Light (1958) and Who Are You,
Polly Maggoo? (1966). Both films demonstrate Kleins progression towards an advanced way to
communicate his views while maintaining his unmistakable aesthetic that consists of methods
seen in New York. Klein completed both films during his employment with Vogue and in
between his city books, similar in concept to New York that featured Paris, Rome, Moscow, and
38
Alexandra Marshall. William Klein: In Focus. Harpers Bazaar (October 2012) pp. 326-331. New York: Hearst
Magazines, 328.
39
40
Alan Yentob and Lewis Macleod. The Many Lives of William Klein. Documentary, directed by Richard Bright
(Nov. 20, 2012; London: BBC, 2012.), Film.
11
Tokyo.41 Klein plunged into filmmaking beginning with Broadway by Light a short film created
after the New York books completion. Hailed as the first Pop film and declared by Orson Welles
the first movie that needed to be in color, 42 Broadway by Light is a fantastic illuminated
explosion set to a jazzy musical score that features the animated neon signs lining the Great
White Way on Manhattan Island. The film provides viewers with a before and after sequence
not previously seen in Kleins street photographs. Photography required Klein to choose a single
image to make a bold statement. Film allotted Klein freedom to express complete thoughts
through montages and a continuous series of images. Instead of frozen snapshots that visualize
public interaction with mass media, Klein constructs continuous interactions scripted for the
moving camera using the neon signs as conceived simulations. He bends their meanings into a
cynical salute to commercialism and consumerism. Klein describes Broadway by Light as a
[satirical] hymn to America, its a hymn to money, a hymn to commerce. 43
Klein once again comments on mass media influence and power in his first fiction feature
film. Who Are You Polly Maggoo? satirizes the fashion industry by portraying it as a business
that converts human beings into commodities to sell products and ideas along with the
sociological impact on consumers. Klein experiments with the concept of reality and openly
ridicules the fashion media machine along with television media. Polly Maggoo is not a film
about fashion; it is Kleins personal anecdote that abhors the entire mass media entity,
commerce, strategic ideologies, and ephemeral desire.
41
Klein created four photobooks (1958-1963) after the New York book debuted. Each book possesses differing
perspectives in comparison to New York. Klein, a stranger to these foreign cities, returned to New York with certain
expectations of the home he left behind. He expected nothing from Moscow, Rome, Paris, and Tokyo and
approached these atmospheres as an explorer.
42
David Campany describes Kleins meeting with Orson Welles as a chance encounter that occurred on a boat
enroute to New York City. Klein had the first print of Broadway by Light in his possession and held an impromptu
screening for Welles. (Campany, William Kleins Way, 6).
43
12
Every person Polly Maggoo encounters either in person or through published imagery
objectifies the title character, Polly, personified through real-life fashion model Dorothy
McGowen. Displaced from Brooklyn, New York, she becomes the premiere Parisian fashion
model who plays a consumable role in the media scheme. Polly stumbles into the starring role of
a French reality television show entitled Who Are You? that rotates featured individuals
weekly like transient fashion trendsthis week fashion model Polly Maggoo, next week the
Catholic Pope. Individuals experience scrutiny from the shows host and producer as well as
placement into absurd situations intended to rip their character apart.
Kleins alienation from the fashion industry appears immediately as the film opens at a
fashion show that features the most outrageous and unwearable garments constructed from rigid
aluminum.44 Each creation wins applause and ultimate approval by Miss Maxwell, a character
Klein created to parody American Vogue editor in chief Diana Vreeland. Miss Maxwell, like
Vreeland, formulates rash ideologies accepted by fashion peers and ultimately the compliant and
malleable public. Proving his point, Klein invited real figures from the fashion industry to attend
the show oblivious to the farce unfolding in front of them. They succumbed to genuine
approbation proving that absurd ideas, along with the nonsense surrounding fashion, resist
blatant parody. If the show appears believable, the audience willingly rewires its tastes to gratify
the status quo. Broadway by Light and Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? become animated
reflections of Kleins New York book and fashion photographs.
The most significant and unceasing theme in Kleins work has incidentally received the
smallest amount of study in existing scholarly art historical writings and resists extensive
exploration. All of Kleins work, regardless of genre, challenges the mass medias grip on
44
Harrison, Afterward, 253.
13
society in the new post-war atmosphere. Throughout his career, Klein communicates that crafty
tactics combined with solicitous marketing imagery possess enough power to program society.
Kleins work loudly declares that reality cannot avoid manipulation. His refusal to follow rules
established by mass media principles kept Klein distanced from mainstream acceptance in the
United States. His films remain unaccepted by mainstream cinema history; even though his street
and fashion photography broke boundaries,45 his contribution to American art history has yet to
earn full recognition.
Kleins technical contributions and rebellious personal nature are the focus of a majority
of existing research and analytical articles written about Klein, though they usually fall short and
lightly document the underlying reasons why Klein picked up his camera in New York and
began photographing the urban scene. This thesis addresses those voids and discusses Kleins
true messages rooted within his work.
45
Ibid, 254.
14
CHAPTER ONE: STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
William Kleins photobook Life is Good & Good for You in New York: Trance Witness
Revels, created during a brief eight-month period beginning in late 1954 and into early 1955,
interpreted the photographic medium differently than any other photobook at this time.
Klein admired Man Ray who famously worked and investigated art-making techniques
through diverse mediums, a multitasking aesthetic that appealed to Klein.46 Klein appreciated the
spontaneity of the Dadaists and the all-encompassing aesthetics utilized by Bauhaus artists,
particularly Moholy-Nagys work and theories featured in Vision in Motion.47 Bauhaus artists
combined architecture, typography, and imagery together, an aspect Klein applied to New York.48
Particularly drawn to the comic-strip vitality that Dadaists applied to their artwork, Klein
reinvents this style and includes extemporaneous qualities.49 Klein designed New York from
layout to typographic settings. Kleins affinity for typography appeared in his paintings and the
signs he photographed on the streets. He felt that the photographic process was something the
photographer themselves should control completely. When designing a photobook, the
photographer should possess one hundred percent of the power to choose the imagery, create the
layout, and set the typography. 50 He cropped images in new and unexpected ways, over-inked
images, and arranged them in small clusters on a black background or fully bled images off the
page. The powerful result rejected narrative and thematic organization, an aspect never seen
previously in other photobooks.51
46
47
Ibid, 10.
48
Jane Livingston. The New York School: Photographs, 1936-1963. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1992,
314.
49
Heilpern, 13.
50
Livingston, 315.
51
Peter Hamilton.The Man from the Future: Interview with William Klein. British Journal of Photography. Oct.
2012, 39.
15
Avant-garde street photography began in the early twentieth century when Eugene Atget
created Parisian street photography aimed toward preserving a city on the verge of succumbing
to rampant industrialization.52 According to John Szarkowski, Atgets work remains a bench
mark against which much of the most sophisticated contemporary photography measures
itself.53 He had more interest in the documentation of people rather than the isolated streets of
his mature imagery. Much more akin to subject matter that Klein captured with his camera,
Atgets early career documents individuals present when he took a photo. Children Playing,
Luxembourg Gardens, 1898 (Figure 14), features seven figures aware of Atget and his camera. A
woman clothed in black garments, likely in charge of the children playing at her feet, renders an
uncomfortable facial expression toward Atgets cameraher response is not much different
from reactions that Kleins photos evoke from unlikely subjects.
As deceivingly simple as Atgets work appeared, Atget intended his documentation to
communicate facts as art.54 He photographed streets, buildings, and storefront windows that
embody a proto-surrealist approach to photography. Atgets work, like the street photographers
emerging in the 1950s New York School, documents raw and strange realities. He preferred the
ethereal lighting effects that natural daylight transformed the street with, which created an
unpredictable atmosphere to photograph.55 Atgets mature work including Storefront, Avenue des
Goblins, 1925 (Figure 15), captures grinning female mannequins staring through the glass that
separates them from the street. Atgets image pays particular attention to superimposed
reflections of the scene across the street that transforms itself into a place that displaces itself in
52
The History of Modern Art. 349
53
John Szarkowski. Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art. New
York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1973. 64.
54
David Harris. Eugene Atget: Unknown Paris. New York: The New Press, 2003. 168.
55
Ibid, 168.
16
time and space.56 Atget evokes a profoundly real yet otherworldly atmosphere that future street
photographers would implement into their imagery.
Kleins work on the New York book characterizes an excitingly raw and disturbing dream
world that recalls Atget and places his work within the New York School movement as a
conscious break from photography rules established by icons before him that included Walker
Evans and Henri Cartier-Bresson.57 Klein was not the only artist with the idea to capture gritty
realities on film after World War II. The New York School included Robert Frank, a
photographer to whom Klein is often compared with, photographed New York and other parts of
the United States at the same time Klein shot New York. 58 The difference between Klein and
other photographers, like Frank, grouped in The New York School era is that Klein made one of
the largest contributions in reinventing the medium in ways photographers approached subject
matter. Frank operates much like an anonymous figure seeking happenstance moments, much
like Cartier-Bresson. Compared to Kleins aggressive aesthetic, Franks street photography
possesses somberness and lacks the high energy that Klein shows viewers. Canal Street New
Orleans, 1956 (Figure 16) by Frank illustrates a busy city sidewalk, which highlights various
people of different ages and race. Frank keeps his distance, carefully leaving the scene
undisturbed. Klein on the other hand, elicits reactions from figures he photographs. Klein
captures pedestrians walking along a sidewalk in Harlem. Filled with energy and movement, as
indicated by the blurred figures, one young man takes long strides and addresses the camera lens
wearing a broad smile across his face (Figure 17). Klein avoids solemn atmospheres filled with
decisive moments and opts instead for real moments bursting with liveliness and chaos. Both
photographers discover interesting street scene related subject matter, though Klein focuses on
56
The History of Modern Art. 349
57
Livingston, 259.
58
Ibid.
17
the relationships between the mass media and society. Klein may not focus on the action
occurring on the sidewalk; instead, he could create meaning from the word USED plastered on
the building behind the figures, which creates an entirely different meaning from Franks Canal
Street photograph.
Kleins methods developed a fascination with societys reliance on the newly powerful
mass media that shamelessly tried to reshape societys tastes. This approach demonstrates
different tactics, which contrast greatly to Kleins New York School peers. The term mass
media arrived into collective vocabulary use during the post-World War II eraaround the time
Klein began photographing New York City and its changing culture. This period experienced the
introduction of television in private homes throughout the United States, England, and much of
Europe.59 Designed to reach large audiences, mass media outlets including cinema, newspapers,
magazines, and street advertisements, used visual imagery designed to persuade patrons to
possess shared interests. Forms and texts positioned together generate popular representations of
events and people where outcomes are imaginary, real, or somewhere in between. 60 The mass
medias ability to influence so many audiences gave it a significant amount of control 61 that
fosters conformity and the dissipation of individuality. 62 Sociologist Theodor Adorno argues that
the mass medias power grows as the insatiable consumer demands immediate gratification in
the form of superficial, fetishized substitutes or consumer goods. 63 The mass media
manipulates consumers desires knowing that their needs are just as much products as the goods
59
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001. 157.
60
Ibid.
61
Ibid, 161.
62
The term masses adopted by Karl Marx, describes shifts in ways people lived in Western industrialized
countries and social formations during the rise of industrial capitalism. Mass media characterized the mechanization
of modern society and populations were more firmly consolidated urban settings where corporations begin replacing
the local workplace.
63
David Gartman. Bourdieu and Adorno: Converging Theories of Culture and Inequality. Theory and Society 41,
(1): pp. 41-72. Published by: Springer, 2011. 44.
18
they consume.64 Klein recognized this change immediately upon his return home before
embarking on photographing the streets. New York City became different from the real
community he remembered. Klein describes his post-war hometown as a place where
everybody looked out for one another.65
Kleins first monograph, William Klein: Photographs (1981), published after Kleins
brief eight-year rejection of photography, presents image selections from Kleins documentary
and fashion photographs, along with an important profile written by John Heilpern. Heilpern
discusses Kleins history, including the artists brief painting career, his photography beginnings,
and his career as a fashion photographer and filmmaker. Kleins techniques and views regarding
photography discussed in depth by the artist himself make Heilperns essay one of the most
referenced resources by those researching Kleins artwork. The profile concludes with the
biggest indication that sums up Kleins oeuvre in one single quote: the author asked Klein if he
was taking pictures again, Klein replied Why not? Anything goes. 66 Klein became increasingly
involved with the mass medias interpretation of postmodern society. Even though the phrase
anything goes reads as simple, diminutive and arrogant, perhaps encompassing Kleins artistic
essence and boldness; it contains the heart and soul of Kleins portfolio.
Jean-Franois Lyotard explains that the phrase anything goes anchors itself deep within
postmodernism.67 Recognizing collapsing structures within realism, postmodernism creates fresh
interpretations and aims to disorient meanings as well as break existing rules. 68 Anything goes
understands contemporary capitalism and more importantly money, an object buried deep inside
every venture and every photograph created by Klein. His phrase anything goes is based on
64
Ibid.
65
The Many Lives of William Klein BBC transcript. 0:19:51.20
66
67
Simon Malpas. Jean-Franois Lyotard. New York and London: Routledge, 2003, 45
68
Ibid, 48.
19
eclecticism and irony that blends varying styles and mediums, which in itself describes concepts
relating economic consumption and society. The phrase indicates Kleins open rejection of the
rules established by Cartier-Bresson and embraces the fact that rules do not exist.69 Anything
goes adopts Lyotards language games borrowed from cultural phenomena, remixes
connotations, and reintroduces new meanings to the same culture.70 Klein adopts a particular
sign, the dollar sign, $, which initiates his crusade. Klein responds to a photo that he took of a
boy standing in front of Gimbels department store on Broadway Street, which appears in New
York (Figure 18):
The symbol in the upper right-hand corner enjoys a certain prestige in
New York. Many of you have no doubt encountered it, in your walks, in
your dreams, in your pursuits of happiness. It is the dollar sign. Which
brings us to todays text, Let us Praise the Dollar. The Dollar is the most
beautiful, the most exciting, the most important thing in New York. 71
An unknown boy saturates the lower left corner of the image. Though the boy appears as
the photographs focal point, Klein emphases the dollar symbol in the upper right hand corner.
Kleins explanation regarding the dollar sign describes that he recognized new social changes
permeating New York Citys culture.72 This intuitive image marks the artists realization of
increased mass medias influence over post-World War II society: capitalism and consumerism
taints collective tastes, ideology challenges individualism, and power relations experience a
69
Heilpern, 13.
70
Ibid, 45.
71
William Klein: Life Is Good and Good for You in New York. Plate 100 (caption booklet pages 3-4)
72
Marcel Feil. William Klein: His Own Man. Foam Magazine, #37 William Klein. December 2013, 12.
20
major shift.73 The dollar sign itself develops into an abstract representation of success and status.
It becomes the blur between true reality and consumerisms seizure of reality. French sociologist
Guy Debord explains in Society of the Spectacle that money gives the impression that it
possesses invisible powers and acts as spokesperson to an unknown force.74 This power is
invisible, even though it clearly exists and drives societys priorities. Debord further describes
money as a spectacle, which one merely gazes upon.75 The idea of money clearly submits itself
into an abstract visual representation.
New York City shifted into a society actively detaching itself from a modernist existence,
slipping into a new postmodern world. Advertisements littered the citys surface suggesting that
everything, including banal objects like facial tissue, was outdated along with the citys citizens
and suggested that post-war civilization was due for restructuring.76 At this point, society begins
conceiving itself differently noting that the future must begin and opened itself to suggestions
offered by capitalist authorities. Instant gratification and satisfaction transformed and brought
many norms into decline. Klein placed himself in the position to document this transformed
society not so much with interests in social change as much as portraying New York City as a
spectacle to viewers. Rosalind Krauss explains the ground zero concept as an origin where an
artists idea begins, a birth for originality and the avant-garde.77 Klein uses himself as a human
gauge as a way of distinguishing between his new experiences in the present along with the
memories of his past in New York. Kleins work continually connects his physical presence and
73
Ibid, 12.
74
Guy Debord. Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black and Red. 1983 (1967). Section 2, Entry 41.
75
Ibid, 49.
76
Capitalism sells itself by marketing ideas related to a new self that includes the construction of cultural ideas
regarding self-improvement and renewed lifestyles. Advertising broadcasts illusions of desirable things and the
good life or life as it should be. (Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to
Visual Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 189.)
77
Rosalind Krauss. The Originality of Avant-Garde: A Postmodernist Repetition. Art After Postmodernism:
Rethinking Representation. New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1984. 18.
21
the physical environment to the dollar sign, a symbol that maintains a strong cynical tone
throughout his career.
Kleins foray into photography undergoes different experimentation levels prior to
arriving in New York City and his encounter with Alexander Liberman. Working through kinetic
panels and light drawings (Figure 19), Klein allowed himself room to experiment with the
photographic medium. The result fundamentally acquired characteristics that echoed his heroic
paintings, very graphic and bold, though lacking in soul and purpose. Kleins photographs did
not acquire its dissident brashness until he set foot in New York City and had a look around. He
approached photography like an experimental painter, ready to test the medium and push it as far
as possible. He claims he lacked respect for superior photographic technique because he had no
idea what that entailed as a self-taught novice. Photography for Klein became an emotional and
corporal process. His memories of the city he grew up in profoundly impacted the vision he held
closely while away in Paris. Klein described his reaction as feeling similar to a Macys parade
balloon floating back after a million orbits.78 Klein focused on the citys sights and sounds he
had missed or forgotten or never even knew forcing him into a trance.79 He ended up in New
York armed with a camera he hardly knew how to use.80
Klein transformed himself into an ethnographer of sorts and placed sociological value
into his photographs. New York becomes akin to a field diary that Klein creates with photographs
and descriptions. The book features a proto-pop caption booklet within the book equipped with
logos, advertising slogans, and Kleins personal reactions to New York. Not only does the
booklet feature short detailed descriptions Klein wrote explaining his images, it includes a short
essay written by Klein titled Manhadoes. Klein describes Manhadoes as a difficult though
78
Campany. William Kleins Way, 4.
79
Ibid.
80
Ibid.
22
exciting location known as Island of the Hills located on the southeast corner of modern day
New York state.81 The term itself dates back to early New England history and refers to an area
(modern-day Manhattan Island) occupied by Dutch settlers.82 Klein, aware that society adapts
new beliefs for survival writes Manhadoes, which summarizes New York Citys superficial
history regarding the island as an entity continuously absorbing customs, and traditions, from
one controlling establishment to the next. Manhadoes ultimately arrives to Manhattans final
recognized governing regimeconsumerism. He begins explaining the fate of the Indians, the
original inhabitants of Manhattan Island prior to the dominating white populations arrival from
Europe. At first, the new occupants appear as allies to the Indians, until the Dutch East India
Company arrives and establishes the first commercial business that exploits the islands
resources. Each time a new government arrives, the island and its inhabitants become the
receiving audience mindlessly absorbing new customs, and ideologies brought by the new
dominant leaders, disguising dissimilarity and avoiding chastisement. Klein ends the essay by
stating that New York City leads the financial and commercial metropolis of US as a world
center for banking and trade and is as well the focus of an industrial area producing c. 10% (by
value) of national output.83 He emphasizes this statement by listing the modern industries that
reside on Manhattan Island, including publishing and clothing manufacture, which governs
modern Manhattan when Klein returns from Paris. Manhattan, during the 1950s, happens to host
the advertising universe as well.
81
William Klein. Manhadoes. William Klein: Life Is Good and Good for You in New York.
82
Charles W. Elliot. The New England History, From the Discovery of the Continent by the Northern, A.D. 986, to
the Period when the Colonies Declared their Independence, A.D. 1776, Vol. I. New York: Charles Scribner, 1857.
248.
83
Ibid.
23
The New York Klein returned to for the first time since leaving his hometown to serve in
the Army was in his opinion a slum, failing him and his memories.84 This is where Manhadoes
arrives from its discovery and settlement, according to Klein, as an environment plagued with
soot and newspapers, choking on its traffic while consuming its rubbish and waste.85
Manhadoes merely supplements Kleins New York City observations and offers a small analysis
of Manhattan Islands history. The metropolis, home to American dreams allows its building to
crumble and its trees to die.86 Klein foretells that society will go insane or grow numb and
nicknames New York as the Capital of Masochism.87 Angered and disgusted, he determined
that New Yorks people and buildings were ripe for documentation. He refused portraying New
York as an idyllic portrait and opted to drag the city through the mud. Klein operates within a
tabloid aesthetic to emphasize good old-fashioned muckraking and sociology in which he
could imagine his pictures lying in the gutter.88 Klein links social reality and social knowledge
with blurred images that tell others stories of dark realities gripping New York. Using the tabloid
format frees Klein to criticize society and its choices not as an artist, but as a newspaperman.89
Vogue covered Kleins expenses, which included access to Vogues facilities, paper, and
film that allowed him to create inventive and groundbreaking photographs. Once Klein began
photographing the New York City streets, his vision no longer contained abstract tendencies
knitted to abstract expressionist aesthetics he previously worked with. Everything became real.
Instead of creating abstract pictograms as subject matter, the streets and the people roaming
the streets transformed into Kleins subject matter. New York City was a readymade awaiting
84
Campany. William Kleins Way, 4.
85
William Klein: Life Is Good and Good for You in New York.
86
Ibid.
87
Ibid.
88
Max Kozloff. William Klein and the Radioactive Fifties. William Klein: Life Is Good and Good for You in New
York. Books on Books 5. New York: Errata Editions. 2010.
89
Ibid.
24
Kleins camera lens. The citys scenes and scenarios were tangible and Klein used this to his
advantage, possessing no need to stage anything. At his disposal, the world presented itself to
Kleins camera lens to depict, to study, ready for him to present his vision to the world.
Klein recognized New York as a consumer society placed on display. As a decade filled
with post-war anxiety, the 1950s experienced extraordinary prosperity ushered in by high
employment, which led to high consumer spending.90 Klein reacted and noted increased
commodity fetishism, prized for messages communicated into society, which dominated the
public eye and confused discernments between tangible and intangible items. The populous
understands what it needs based on messages broadcasted by advertising. Valued objects
regulate collective behaviors as the public sees the same repetitive visuals and slogans. Debord
explains that objects and advertisements created for selling purposes brushes reality aside
developing within the quantitative.91 Advertising alone did not introduce these calculated
techniques to promote consumerism; it already exists as part of our collective unconscious
history. Debord explains that conditions must modify themselves in order to extend the existence
of human beings. Humans feel obliged to follow what is popular for survival. 92 New beliefs
evolve from ideas to realities and beliefs.
New York testifies to Kleins personal realization that the city was obsessed with itself
and clearly consuming its own image. Based on these observations, Klein photographs
discourage the discretion and balance that Cartier-Bresson championed.93 Klein resisted the
poetic, ironic, and humane vision expressed through street photography. He seized the
photographic documentary medium and forced it into a strong, cinematic expression never
90
Gerry Badger. The Photobook: A History. The Indecisive Moment: Frank, Klein, and the Steam of
Consciousness. New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 2004. 233.
91
Debord, Section 1, Entries 37, 38, 40.
92
Ibid.
93
Cheroux, 93.
25
before used to depict a society. 94 Heilperns essay creates a list of techniques Klein utilized
making this shift distinctive: flash, wide-angle, snapshots, abstractions, blur, close-up, accidents,
special layouts, and over-inking.95 Each aspect served specific functions and encouraged Kleins
unique methodology and dynamism. Wide-angles allowed each composition enough room to
share information with viewers concerning New Yorks environment.
Klein documented specific conditions taking place in the city, though simultaneously he
aimed to shatter all illusions built around New York. New York evolved into Kleins reaction to a
shared psychosomatic experience of a changed United States that occurred among citizens living
in post-war America and street photographers active in the 1950s. 96 Klein concerned himself
with ways of showing America as never before, a soiled version that was harsh, caustic, and
aggressively honest.97 Use of the snapshot allowed Klein to break the street photography
genres framework and play with accidents as he charged a scene, rejecting any notion that the
elements would submit to control. Spontaneity encouraged the blur that showed up in the final
image, which communicated a sense of action and movement or a passage of time.
According to Cartier-Bresson, a photographer should observe all action from a distance
and never interfere with the subject. Big Face in the Crowd (Figure 20) reveals Klein actively
creating work that differs from Cartier-Bressons approach. Art historian Gerry Badger describes
Kleins photographic style as the indecisive moment.98 Badger states that Kleins imagery
retains curiously unfinished qualities filled with excitement, expressiveness, and shunned the
94
Arthur Ollman. The Photographs of William Klein. William Klein: An American in Paris. San Diego: The
Museum of Photographic Arts, 1987. 2.
95
Heilpern, 7.
96
Lisa Hostetler. The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940-1959. Milwaukee Art Museum. New
York: DelMonico Books, 2009. 25.
97
Ollman, 2.
98
Badger, 233.
26
accepted good taste found in Cartier-Bressons work.99 Klein reinterprets taking a portrait and
embeds it with uncomfortable extreme close ups. Klein departs from Cartier-Bressons canon by
nose-diving into the excitement and embracing ideas of chance or chasing down photographic
moments. He wished for visibility, avoiding concealment, a cognizant resistance to Cartier-
Bressons popular photographic methods.
Confrontation allowed Klein expressionist and graphic freedom, offering something
innovative and shocking to current photographic procedures. Big Face in the Crowd exemplifies
one of Kleins portraits. It is grotesque and unflattering, a moment not offered freely to Klein by
his female subject. She experiences an extreme close-up to the point that her facial features
distort. Her face turns slightly to her right as if she were flinching and avoiding Kleins camera
from making contact with her face. Klein, like the newspaper paparazzo, assaults the womans
personal space. Her uncomfortable and questioning expression clarifies Kleins confrontation.
Big Face in the Crowd makes Franks ElevatorMiami Beach, 1955, (Figure 21) which
appeared in The Americans, appear tame even though Franks image at the time was fresh and
different. In comparison to Kleins approach, Frank remains a ghost that captures impulsiveness,
instead of confronting spontaneity. Frank creates a poetic moment of a young woman silently
waiting as the elevators passengers exit the car. As in Kleins work, in Franks photograph,
people leaving the elevator are blurry and grainy figures, which communicate a sense of
movement. Franks balanced composition focuses on the girls bored expressions through
contrasting blacks and whites. The man located to the right of the woman balances the couple
leaving the car, which creates a frame that positions the woman as the focal point. Overall,
ElevatorMiami Beach stays within Franks non-confrontational boundaries.
99
Ibid.
27
Big Face in the Crowd creates the opposite framing effectan assortment of people
frames an out of focus woman. Positioned closely to the female figures face, the camera
penetrates her personal space and she reacts by turning her head at an angle as though she were
avoiding physical contact with the camera. Her mouth darkened by lipstick disapproves of
Kleins provocative methods and her eyes directly address the camera lens with a hint of
curiosity as to why Klein snaps her photo. Klein chases this particularly banal moment and
emotionally charges it with anxiety. Klein creates focus not only on this female at the center of
the photo, but also on the figures that surround her. He pays close attention to facial expressions
exhibited by three men; one old, one middle-aged, and one young. All figures represent a single
moment with varying reactions. Even though the woman at the center of the portrait appears as
the focus, Klein appreciates every aspect of this scene.
Kleins techniques evolve into a language that he speaks with as commentary on specific
conditions and settings. His new photographic translation places Klein as an innovator in the
street photography genre. Kleins New York often garners recognition as one of the paramount
photographic achievements of the last half of the twentieth century. 100 Each snapshot features
Kleins unmistakable voice speaking to viewers regarding the corruption consuming New York
City. He took this change personally, as he explored New York and discovered that the city was
changing into an impersonal social atmosphere. Each photo emphasizes that Kleins presence
remains right behind the cameras lens. The camera, Kleins weapon, became his prosthesis in
the streets, a megaphone for his voice.101 His weapon of choice was Cartier-Bressons second
hand 35mm Leica that he purchased at Magnum pictorial service in Paris,102 could snap images
100
David Campany. William Kleins Tokyo. http://davidcampany.com/william-kleins-tokyo/ Acquired on February
12, 2014. 2.
101
Heilpern, 18.
102
Livingston, 315.
28
instantly with its rapid-fire shutter speeds and quickly take notes for Kleins field book. 103
Klein found that the Rolleiflex he already had would have cropped more information than he
desired. Photographed entirely with the portable Leica, Klein made New York mostly utilizing a
wide-angle lens, along with three normal lenses.104 Klein preferred the wide-angle lens ability to
gather an enormous amount of information in one single shot. The Leicas small size allowed
Klein to roam the streets, and raise his weapon eye-level, which brought viewers into Kleins
point-of-view. Other times, Klein embraced principles of chance, never raising the camera near
his face, snapping away only later finding out what he captured.
Cartier-Bressons old Leica in Kleins possession shows an interesting difference
between the two photographers aesthetics. In 1952, Cartier-Bresson photographed a pair of boys
in Rome, Italy playing with toy guns (Figure 22). His photograph possesses a light-hearted and
innocent atmosphere as the boys point their guns at each other. Like Kleins photographs,
Cartier-Bresson captures the boys movements, indicated by subtle blurring seen in the boys
legs. In New York, Klein also shot a photograph of boys playing with a toy gun (Figure 23).
Unlike Cartier-Bresson, Kleins figures become aggressive and aim the gun at the camera
lens. The boy holding the gun toward the camera appears as though Klein provoked a hostile
expression out of him. The boys eyebrows knit together as his mouth forms a menacing tight
line. In opposition to this mock anger fuming from the boy facing the camera, another boy stands
at his side unthreatened by his friends behavior. Kleins tightened composition pulls the boys
close together and emphasizes their opposing facial expressions and body language. Cartier-
Bressons image divides the boys playing cowboy with a wide space and places the boys at either
end of the composition. Klein foreshortens the arm of the boy holding the gun, which grows into
103
Lisa Hostetler. Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940-1959. Milwaukee
Museum of Art. New York: DelMonico Books. 2009, 27.
104
Livingston, 315.
29
blurry shapes as the tip of the gun threatens to make contact with the camera lens. Cartier-
Bresson carefully keeps his scene uncropped as he captures the boys movements with his
camera lens. He remains anonymous and captures the decisive moment. Kleins subject angles
his body and thrusts it forward obviously acknowledging Klein as his hand holding the weapon
guides the way. The entire scene emphasizes the violent nature that Kleins imagery embraces.
Kleins voice possesses many octavesfrom a frazzled murmur seen in an image taken
of a youth juxtaposed with a Chesterfield cigarette advertisement (Figure 24), to a loud and
jarring screech as Klein boldly enters a supermarket on Broadway and 72 nd capturing three
women in line ready to purchase consumerist objects (Figure 25).
Both images bring innovative and original techniques to street photography as
impeccable examples that illustrate Kleins influence on the genre. The Chesterfield image,
which takes place outside of a Harlem candy store, ultimately riffs on blur. Though the boy at the
compositions center remains unmoved, Klein applies an eccentric blur into the scene that
suggests movement, when in fact physically action does not occur. Klein creates optical illusions
between the checkerboard patterns and the figures. The blur consumes the boy and the faceless
figure to his right who has a hand placed on his hip. The boys hair, as well as the boys legs
essentially melds into the background, visually suggesting movement to viewers. This
metamorphosis between the figures and the background suggest that they are the city and
products of advertising. It becomes nearly impossible to decipher between the 7-Up and
Chesterfield signs behind both figures, the patterned wall, and the figures themselvesthe
checkerboard, the advertisements, and the children become whole.
The supermarket image contains the same fusing as the Chesterfield image. Unlike the
Chesterfield image, there is a sense of movement even though it appears the action halts
30
abruptly. Klein freezes this particular moment and writes, dressed to kill, cigarette in mouth,
Mama goes down to get something for supper.105 Klein pays particular attention to the
juxtaposition between the women and the products in their carts, in his statement and visual
interpretations. He picks up the textures and repetition in the shopping carts and the products
placed upon the shelves behind the figures. Products recede toward the vanishing point and other
shoppers blend into fuzzy shapes, until they are nearly undiscernible.
Both images apply different levels of high contrast to highlight particular elements within
each composition. On the supermarket compositions right side, above the first womans
shoulder, Klein highlights a series of numbers that indicate the presence of the powerful dollar.
The numbers would remain unnoticed if it were not for the emphasis Klein placed on the richly
toned dress worn by the woman. Contrast placed into the Chesterfield composition plays a
different role. Instead of separating elements from each other, Klein connects figures to the
atmosphere in an over-saturated, over-inked style. Both images take place in two separate arenas
of transaction with the same purposethe final destinations advertisements lead patrons tothe
supermarket and the candy store. All consumable consumer products including 7-Up, Coca-Cola,
and Chesterfield cigarettes are obtainable here. Klein illustrates post-war society freshly
saturated with dreamt up needs and desires generated by mass media. Individualism evaporates
and reinvents itself as shared tastes through product promises and flashy logos.
Heilpern never describes the gestural appeal that appears in Kleins imagery, which
reverberates qualities found within his early paintings. Kleins artistic background began with
bold abstract paintings, a genre where he naturally communicated gestural techniques. By
rejecting painting as his sole medium, Klein used the camera as a prosthesis that allowed the
105
William Klein: Life Is Good and Good for You in New York.
31
creation of automatic paintings that consisted of found scenarios within reality. New York City
was his canvas filled with unsuspecting pedestrians who became readymade subjects. Kleins
photographs recall similarities seen within his paintings like 4 Men in Caf, 1949 (Figure 26).
Klein overlaps geometric elements and staggers figures, which emphasizes the flattened quality
of the painting. A distinctive film noir eminence appears in the mens three-piece suits and shifty
facial expressions.106 Klein allows one figure to address the viewers gaze as the other men
advert their eyes or focus on the card game unfolding in their hands.
By looking closely at the four figures on the lower left of the painting (Figure 27) and
isolating them from the remaining composition, the cropped scene recalls the first image that
appears in New York (Figure 28). Like 4 Men in Caf, the photograph features a flattened quartet
of assorted genders and races. Klein instinctively captures each face turning toward the center of
the composition. Skewed somewhat, the balance emphasizes the faces flatness that results from
increased contrast and creates a gritty chiaroscuro effect, like gestural paintbrush strokes. Klein
treats each image as an artwork with the same importance given to paintings.
With his passionately charged gestural methods, Klein openly criticizes New York Citys
population for trusting ideologies advertising sells to them. The population adopts ideas
regarding New York and its lifestyle provided by advertisements and advertising slogans
repetitively exposed to them. New York City appears as the center of the universe, the place to
be and the place where anything can happen. Klein arranges the caption booklet itself reflecting
these ideas sold to the population. Klein includes phrases such as remember, there is only one
New York and this way to heaven emphasizing his point. The Good Housekeeping seal of
106
Growing up during the 1930s and 1940s, Klein was an avid moviegoer and likely exposed to the film noir
cinematic genre. Campany and Heilpern mention in their essays Kleins affinity toward the cinema as a child.
Heilpern writes about Kleins copy of Dick Tracy located on his living room bookshelf among his that address art,
photography, and theory. (Heilpern, 10)
32
approval on the cover comments on the populations unhesitating acceptance of ideologies
displayed and sold to them on a daily basis (Figure 29).
No Mans Land, 1955 (Figure 30) from New York, visualizes Kleins disappointment in
his former hometown that failed him. Overwhelmed by New York Citys commercial cluttered
atmosphere, Klein discovered a city that lost its close-knit neighborhood appeal. No Mans Land
pays homage to the mass media and the layered advertisements caking every angle of the public
landscape. The eye cannot focus on a single image and becomes indecisive as to whether or not it
should focus on the Coca-Coca, Pepsi-Cola, or 7-Up logos. Kleins high contrast portrayal of
sign upon sign accurately gives a dark depiction of consumerism swallowing the atmosphere.
This image discusses New York citizens targeted by chaotic mass accumulation. Klein illustrates
an ignored world that works fervently into societys mind through repetition. The Coca-Cola
logo repeats itself into a distinct pattern around the composition. Coca-Cola borders the images
left hand side over the sidewalk, a place frequented by pedestrians. The images entire right-hand
side is a brick wall covered in advertisements competing with one another. Regarding this issue
Klein writes of his disenchantment COME ON IN FREE, Illustrating the sophistication of
modern advertising. Advertising today is mainly grotesque. Such a conspiracy has developed
between advertiser and public that it has become a gagthe public is grateful, yaks and goes
along.107
Klein further amplifies his position by applying grotesque and gritty textures that
accentuate corruption stirring inside New Yorks populous brought on by the explosion of
advertising. Melancholy looms in the atmosphere seen in No Mans Land. Klein begins using an
107
33
anti-aesthetic, destroying visual pleasure in art, just as the advertisements destroy the visual
pleasure of the streets.
Brenda; Have You Seen the Crosley Super-V with the New Look? (Figure 31)
demonstrates the deteriorating scenery New York surrenders to as an enlarged advertisement
competes with the urban skyline. The Brenda sign stretches across the photographs center
offering no contest to the three smaller advertisements below it. The skyline featured in Brenda
is indistinct, polluted, and hazy as it competes for attention with the massive sign. Klein again
applies grainy qualities to the entire composition further emphasizing the grimy and
compromised atmosphere. Behind the advertisement, smoke stacks dot the left portion,
juxtaposing false ideas with the polluted reality. The contrast between blacks and muted greys
paired with an unflattering texture further pushing a tainted sensation, as if the landscape
suffocates in soot and consumerism.
Debord describes this phenomenon as a loss of quality. 108 The inanimate world that
commodities exist in dominates the living. Inanimate objects and slogans place importance on
the behavior it regulates by eschewing reality and creating space for new ideologies and
complete domination over the economy. 109 Consumers evolve into mindless primitives and Klein
identifies this aspect as he remains on the outside looking in. Capitalism is nothing more than a
conquest that allows mass media to become its master. The mass media claims to liberate society
in Brenda. Brenda signifies female consumers existing within a society who searches for
conveniences to ease mundane routines, like washing laundry. By questioning whether the
viewer sees the new look or not, a new idea emerges which, creates a new device designed to
bond viewers with an object they now cannot live without. The object becomes humanized as its
108
Debord, Section 2, Entry 38.
109
Debord, Section 2, Entry 37, 40.
34
new look relates to another familiar transition humans involve themselves in that is as common
as getting a new hairdo.
Klein writes in New York there is something terrifying about this phrase written on the
face of the city as if the city allowed itself a label it did not approve.110 The enlarged sign is a
strategy to sell a washing machine, satirical as it is since Klein believes New York changed into
a polluted town. Adding humor to his description, Klein mockingly writes that the Super-V is
probably uranium-plated.111
Like advertisements, Klein questioned New York City through the subjects he
photographed. Attacking people like the paparazzo, Kleins aesthetic was intense and personal.
He mentions that he could not visualize a clean photographic method right for New York. Klein
focused on offering viewers a murky and disordered image of New York Citys true reality, not a
quixotic view of the Big Apple. Klein intended to show New Yorks hidden personality
through documentary techniques. He identified that since the war ended, urban populations had
lost their sense of community. With increasing corporate growth, people became increasingly
withdrawn from each other. Mass ideologies rose, generating myths about the good life under
capitalisms umbrella. Kleins photograph Christmas Shopping features an assembly of women
gathered on the street outside Macys department store that particularly characterizes this
phenomena (Figure 32). This event takes place during the holiday season, a religious one for
some that experienced a calculated reconfiguration by mass media outlets to promote
overspending and consumer consumption. New ideologies invented by the mass media, include
not only Christmas, but also Easter and Valentines Day, which caught on quickly as acceptable
holiday practices. According to Karl Marx, those who control production also control ideas and
110
111
Ibid.
35
viewpoints broadcasted to the masses and formulate ideologies to appear natural and
acceptable.112 Corporations paired with the mass media create a culture industry, which caters
to a mass public that ceases abilities to decipher between real life and deceptions that the mass
media created.113 Offering immediate gratification, the culture industry promises consumers
pseudoindividuality, a trait that Adorno describes as the mass medias attempt to incorporate
superficial symbols of desired qualities to disguise an underlying sameness. 114 The mass media
denies independence and individualism in order to generate profits.
Klein charges unamused shoppers awaiting entrance into Macys with his camera. The
distorted angle allows figures to fill the bottom half of the composition. Klein appears to have
not brought the cameras viewfinder to his eye to capture this happening, but instead held the
camera possibly level with his chest to accomplish this slanted and awkward result. Typical of
the New York atmosphere, buildings substitute areas normally reserved for the sky. Klein places
city on top of city as a commentary regarding a corroding city that consumes its own image.
Overall, the scene feels peculiar as people gather like drones eager to enter the department store
and spend money on objects. Like many others, these figures accept invented belief systems
established for them, which allows consumerism to flourish and prosper.
Their annoyed appearance, clearly with Kleins bold approach, contrast with their joyous
corsages that sprout holly ribbon, glass balls, and mistletoe.115 Klein again applies grainy
textures as a device that deemphasizes the Christmas spirit but emphasizes that consumerism has
become central to Christmas. The facial features of the woman on the far left darken to the point
of near abstraction that she begins blending with the man positioned to her left. Klein plays on
112
Sturken, 166.
113
Ibid, 165.
114
Gartman, 48.
115
William Klein: Life Is Good and Good for You in New York. Caption booklet pages 7-8, entry number 57.
36
the books structure as the woman on the right gets her face cropped off by the edge of the page.
Klein consciously lines up two buildings into the books gutter, which creates dual illusions: to
separate the structures, even though they appear to collide into each other in a mirror-like
reflection.
Vogue refused to publish Kleins final New York images stating that the photographs
were un-American and sleazy for Vogue readers. The publisher felt that Klein made New York
look like a shantytown. 116 Klein knew that his photographs of the dumbest, most ordinary stuff
would not be acceptable to Vogues standards and that they would better serve his vision as a
photobook. He created a maquette using Vogues technologically superior Photostat image
enlarger,117 which allowed him to experiment with various scales. He used this maquette to shop
his book concept around to local publishers. Unable to find a publisher willing to gamble on the
New York book was not a total surprise. Photography was not completely acceptable as a
credible art form; publishers found that backing up a photobook was risky and not very
profitable.118 Kleins radical approach to photography did not help persuade publishers to take on
his project either. The only successful photobook at the time was Cartier-Bressons photobook.
Even Robert Frank had trouble at first finding a publisher to back The Americans (1959) which
appeared tame next to Kleins photographs.119 Klein found Chris Marker, an editor at Petite
Planet, a division of Editions du Seuil in Paris, who threatened to resign if they refused to
publish Kleins book.120 Petite Planet published a series of hip travel books which Kleins
116
117
Jeffrey Ladd. The Making of Life is Good & Good for You in New York. William Klein: Life Is Good and
Good for You in New York. Books on Books 5. New York: Errata Editions. 2010.
118
Livingston, 267.
119
Ibid.
120
Hamilton, 29.
37
book became a part of, even though his book looked drastically different from the other books. 121
Marker knew that never before was a photographic book like Kleins published prior to New
York.122
New York documented post-war social change in the most non-aesthetic way possible.
These images had nothing to do with creating pleasure or beauty for viewers. In fact, Klein made
everything fouler than reality; they were bold and provocative. Pages contained pure topographic
description to create cultural knowledge and creating a space for viewers to become an
eyewitness to what Klein sees. His ethnographic notes made to accompany images helped to
locate pictures in the field of visual description and cultural knowledge to see the real. In the
make shift darkroom set up in his hotel bathroom, Klein took his experimentation further by
pouring a variety of liquids on developing images including milk and tea. He approached the
process as an avant-garde painter, never taking his work too seriously, adhering to his anything
goes techniques.
Published and distributed in 1956, New York well received in Paris won the prestigious
Prix Nadar award and sealed his cult status overseas, including Japan. Kleins publishers decided
that distribution in London and Rome would experience equal success and it did. New York
though, never made it to an American publisher. The New York photobook led Klein into another
genre that he would reject photography for years laterfilmmaking.
121
Ibid.
122
Jeffrey Ladd. The Making of Life is Good & Good for You in New York.
38
CHAPTER TWO: FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY
1955 marked an important year for Kleins photography career not solely for Life is Good
& Good for You in New York: Trance Witness Revels; Kleins ten-year relationship with Vogue
as a staff fashion photographer began at this time. Often considered a non-artistic platform,
fashion photography became a pathway that serious photographers used as means for financing
serious artistic endeavors. Alexander Liberman possessed this same view when he stated to Klein
that working for Vogue would give Klein a way to make a living. 123 Liberman explained to
Klein that a contract with Vogue would allow Klein to earn money and provide freedom to
finance other creative projects.124
Kleins visual platform New York criticized the mass medias dominant cultural role, yet
he began creating photographs for the very machine that manufactured desire and new standards
for the masses. Klein understood that Vogue, funded by wealthy advertisers, promoted
conspicuous consumption. He knew the publication taught readers how to utilize the self and
broadcast taste, style, and distinction through fashion and luxurious objects. Vogue, along with
other womens periodicals including Harpers Bazaar, operated as a source where readers could
obtain cultural exposure. Under Libermans reign, Vogue began including essays that brought
attention to life outside of fashion including lesser known cultures and people under the
reoccurring sections People Are Talking About and Eye View. Some of Kleins work
appeared as the New Photo-Graphic Eye in the November 1954 issue prior to his assignments
in fashion photography, which featured Kleins early light paintings (Figure 6) and a reportage
style portrait of two young children (Figure 33). Klein also photographed an airplane taxiing an
airport runway for Vogue's Eye View of Stretching Time featured in the January 1961 issue.
123
Hamilton, 36.
124
Friedl, 48.
39
(Figure 34) The black and white photograph gave Vogue readers glimpses of Kleins non-fashion
photographic style equipped with grainy textures and blurry out of focus objects.
Vogue communicated news about art, film, and theater, which offset its fashion
features.125 Liberman was responsible for introducing these changes to increase Vogues
intellectual level.126 Writers and art critics contributed regularly and featured notable talents
including Harold Rosenberg, Clement Greenberg, and Susan Sontag to name a few.127 Liberman
held interests in imparting Vogue with a revamped newsmagazine approach similar to the Daily
News; this included replacing hand lettering with the more modern Franklin Gothic, a typeface
that normally appeared in the tabloids. Liberman envisioned this formula as a way of breathing
vigor and renewed energy into Vogue.128 The lettering itself became rougher; whitespace,
crowded pages and messier layouts were encouraged.129 Kleins aesthetic naturally fit into
Libermans renovated vision for Vogue. Both Klein and Liberman embraced an anti-design
style. In his autobiography, Liberman states that he came to believe in the unexpected, in
chance, in doing things that hadnt been done before and didnt conform to any established
design principles.130 At Vogue, Liberman broke specific design molds and embraced a more
journalistic or reportage approach, qualities present in Kleins photographs.131 Klein and
Libermans partnership became vital for Libermans vision of a more modern look for Vogue.
125
Angeletti, Norberto and Alberto Oliva. In Vogue: The Illustrated History of the Worlds Most Famous Fashion
Magazine. New York: Rizzoli. 2006, 157.
126
Angeletti, 157.
127
Liberman himself a sculptor and painter maintained interests in modern art world happenings. He supervised
every article and artistic contributor published regarding art with interests in giving readers chances to learn about
the arts. (Angelett, 158)
128
Angeletti, 134.
129
Ibid.
130
Dodie Kazanjian and Calvin Tomkins. Alex: The Life of Alexander Liberman. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.
202.
131
Angeletti, 134.
40
Fashion publications, founded with the purpose to instruct the expanding middle class, 132
were arenas that serious photographers utilized as a way to publish and broadcast their imagery
to the public. Liberman sought ways to democratize the fashion magazine for the masses, no
longer making it exclusive to the upper class audience Vogue originally reached. Liberman, long
an admirer of Harper Bazaars avant-garde format thought its focus, along with Vogues focus,
was all wrong. Fashion magazines were stiff luxury products that catered to wealthy readers
like a glamorized clothing catalog. Liberman inadvertently contributed to the mass medias goal
of promoting ideologies, encouraging mass spending, and trend following. Photography itself
eluded recognition as a serious art form until the 1980s. Even Liberman only saw photography as
a superior form of illustration with no pretentions to art.133 Many photographers found
themselves accepting fashion photography assignments as a way to create avant-garde imagery
and finance their serious work.134 If Klein wanted to work professionally with photography and
earn a living, fashion photography would serve as a means to an end.
Kleins paycheck came from Vogue, even though he refused to play by their rules. Even
while incorporating Libermans broad programs, Vogue necessarily maintained its character as
an organ within commoditized society and Klein seemingly played along. Campaigns and
fashion stories that graced Vogues pages altered group behavior and modified social structures
by design as it reached the middle class and promoted a shared consciousness. The publication
encouraged new status quos society should carry and become. Similar to the advertising chaos
Kleins camera captured in New York, advertisers, including luxurious fashion houses and
product producers, insisted that their products experience promotion through repetitive exposure,
which occurred in the press. Modern societys chief activity is its involvement with producing
132
Angeletti, 134.
133
Kazanjian, 203.
134
Harrison, Afterword, In and Out of Fashion. 248.
41
and consuming powerful images.135 Both venues, the urban streets and Vogue, banked on the
importance of product placement in societys common areas, knowing their readers could relate
to and consume imagery, which resulted in spontaneous absorption. Vogue counted on this
process to draw masses to stores and purchase merchandise featured in the magazine. These new
desires, driven by imagery and logos, served as visual examples for audiences to internalize.
Magazine foundations began as (and remain) a source for communicating fashion
photographs to consumers at a rapid rate.136 The fashion story consists of editorialized images
and texts that feature a publicized mix of clothing and accessories.137 The fashion photograph
itself is a representation made by an elite photographer of elite clothes worn by elite models. 138
Magazine readers understand an implied system that communicates power, morality, good
behavior, stability, and propriety within the fashion photograph.139 Fashion models began
evolving into celebrities and aspirational figures during the late 1950s and early 1960s when
models were plucked from obscurity and no longer from members of upper class society. 140
Readers saw relatable figures that they could emulate. Models sold dreams, clothing, and
lifestyles.141 Models reflected new ideas broadcasted by the mass media and imitated what the
contemporary female should aspire to be. Fashion photographs sold clothes and ideas of freedom
that urged mass consumption.
Regardless of Kleins position, art historian Martin Harrison concludes that Klein and
Vogue together were a successful mismatch.142 Liberman wanted Kleins innovative and fresh
vision at Vogue to compete with Richard Avedons work at their top competitor, Harpers
135
Susan Sontag On Photography. 153.
136
Stephen Bull. Photography. New York; London: Routledge. 2010. 148.
137
Ibid, 149.
138
Ibid, 150.
139
Ibid.
140
Ibid.
141
Ibid, 152.
142
42
Bazaar.143 Avedon was creating new standards for fashion photography by catching his subjects
in movement and bizarre scenarios that goaded the deception of the studio atmosphere. 144
Liberman searched for a photographer who could bring this sort of visual excitement to the
pages of Vogue.145 Klein conveyed his robust street photography aesthetics into his fashion
images, which gave fashion photography a different look. Liberman admits that nothing like
Klein had happened to fashion photography before.146 Liberman influenced other photographers
at Vogue by pushing them to their extremes to realize their artistic styles. Klein experienced this
identical push deliberately from Liberman as an effort to retain his violent reportage style seen in
New York, which therefore reinterpreted strikingly into Vogues pages.147 Deliberately eschewing
capitalism and adversely promoting it simultaneously, Klein experimented with depictions of
reality, specifically fabrications between reality and exaggerated scenarios by mixing solid
technique and realism with imagination and fantasy. 148 He introduced new techniques utilizing
wide-angle lenses, open flashes, and multiple exposures.149 Kleins photographs for Vogue were
the next major shift happening in mid-1950s fashion photography that brought the snapshot
aesthetic into fashion photography. 150 He was shockingly original next to the graceful fashion
depictions Avedon showed at the time. Klein abandoned print quality, composition, balance,
careful lighting, along with other photographic canons in pursuit of the raw, jumbled,
accidental, and incongruous look of everyday life.151 Klein treated fashion as an illusion and
143
Harrison, Appearances: Fashion Photography Since 1945. 98.
144
Kazanjian, 202.
145
Ibid, 203.
146
147
148
Angeletti, 165.
149
Hamilton, Appearances, 98.
150
Kazanjian, 203.
151
Ibid.
43
brought the streets erratic spirit into fashion photography. Liberman observed that Klein saw
fashion as a joke and the dress just a prop for a photographic idea.152
Incongruously, Kleins fashion imagery did not begin on the urban streets. He began
photographing mundane content that he called odd jobs153 in the studio that included mostly
still life photographs and headshots. Although these images contrasted with his unrestricted and
vigorous street photographs, this foundation allowed Klein opportunities to learn additional
technical skills associated with professional photography.154 He also learned that fashion
photography required a stylized approach requiring developed technical skills. 155 These aspects
never forced Klein away from experimentation as seen in an image he created for American
Vogue that displays the spring seasons colored fabrics (Figure 12). Klein seizes relatively dull
subject matter and delivers it to readers with complexity and a renewed point of view. Colorful
fabric swatches form colorful patterns, organized from warm to cool, evolving into a
sophisticated color wheel. Klein brings a sense of depth to the color swatches by arranging an
aquatic optical illusion on either side of the swatches that reflects and distorts the material. The
viewer, in turn, learns a different way to view the spring seasons new color trends.
Headshots failed to restrict Klein from bending rules when he styled compositions. He
sought humor in his approach much as he did with scenes presented in New York. Paris Hats in
America (Vogue, Sep 15, 1958) possessed concepts of presenting hats to viewers bluntly and
without elaborate context (Figure 13). Kleins confrontational personality surfaced as some
headshots illustrated models reversing the gaze between themselves and the viewer. In other
images, models controversially smoked cigarettes without cigarette holders and with ungloved
152
153
Alexandra Marshall. William Klein: In Focus. Harpers Bazaar (October 2012) pp. 326-331. New York:
Hearst Magazines, 330.
154
Herbert Keppler, 96.
155
Ibid.
44
hands. For fashion, models were required to use a cigarette holder and gloves; presentations
avoiding these rules appeared uncouth and offensive to rigid American tastes. 156 Demonstrating
Kleins inclination toward a cinematic style,157 he positions model Evelyn Tripp to face the
camera directly, smoke a cigarette, and allow the smoke to curl around the hats veil (Figure 13).
An article featured in the trade magazine Modern Photography, exactly a year after the image
initially appeared, humorously compared Tripps smoke to steam released from a trains smoke
stack.158 Published in all of the Vogues except for American Vogue, this image was not a
sophisticated or elegant portrayal of a woman smoking a cigarette.159 This image became one of
fashion photographys most widely-reproduced images.160
Considered Vogues star photographer by 1958,161 Kleins fashion photography
boundaries expanded from the studio to additional locations, including the street, and Klein
received responsibility for fashions important collection issues. 162 Naturally, Klein reinterpreted
fashion for the urban atmosphere by combining gritty realities with the fictionalized fashion
world. He never possessed an interest with fashion itself, even though his purpose as fashion
photographer should ostensibly embody the contrary. Klein developed an interest in fashion
interacting with reality. 163 He could care less what the newest fashion trends were. Klein reports:
the editors brought in the suits and dresses and I would find some way to photograph them. 164
156
157
Angeletti, 163.
158
Keppler, 96.
159
160
Harrison, Afterword, In and Out of Fashion, 250.
161
Ibid.
162
Ibid.
163
Freidl, 57
164
Ibid.
45
For Vogues July 1958 issue, Kleins assignment required a series of photographs
highlighting an assortment of coats for the upcoming fall season. Klein gravitated back toward
the dollar obsessed urban atmosphere and placed models into New York Citys unpredictable
streets. This fashion story (Figure 35), along with another similar image featuring a model
interacting with New York City streets, Vogue 1961, (Figure 11) demonstrates Kleins
unexpected way of presenting fashion mixed with a realistic atmosphere. He discovers ways to
reinterpret the language of fashion and deny fashion a formal precision and stylized austerity
realized in Avedons photographs. 165 Urban streets ultimately evolved into Kleins backdrops
amid automobiles, traffic lights, people running, everything real, with no preparation
whatsoever.166 Models urged to act as ordinary people would forgot eventually that they were
posing for Vogue.167 Klein stayed true to his street photography aesthetic, by allowing his discord
seen in New York to transition into his fashion photographs.168 Like New Yorks imagery, Klein
once again encompassed accidents and the anything goes attitude. With Klein as photographer,
models frequently were turned loose, faced chaotic traffic, curious bystanders, and erratic
weather on their own. 169 Whatever the city decided to throw at the models it ultimately
contributed further to Kleins erratic style in the end.
Klein did not look at recreating reality entirely; he sought to reinterpret the notion of
reality. According to Susan Sontag, photographs interpret reality similar to an impression. 170
Photographs duplicate forms found in reality and regurgitate recognizable benchmarks to
audiences. Through images, consumers relate their personal experiences to pre-existing
165
Des ORawe. Eclectic Dialectics: William Kleins Documentary Method. Film Quarterly, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Fall
2012) The University of California Press. 52.
166
Angeletti, 163.
167
Ibid.
168
169
ORawe, 52.
170
Sontag, 154.
46
informational systems that photography contributes to and mimics.171 Photography, especially in
the fashion realm, possesses tools for deciphering behavior, predicting it, and interfering with
it.172 Humans naturally attribute qualities to photographs because they recognize information
presented to them and see substitute worlds.173 In fashion imagery, photographers create invented
scenarios that feature models placed into various backdrops; viewers identify an alternate world
and accept it. Even the tritest photograph holds the ability to transform into an object of desire or
contain meanings that attach themselves to an object photographed.
Klein comprehends and appreciates photographys influence. He recycles banal urban
artifacts viewers see on a daily basis including street signs and traffic lights, giving these items
renewed perspectives. According to Sontag, these aspects become meta-clichs or routine
objects that evolve into distinguishing and vibrant artifacts.174 A model hails a taxi with her large
Great Dane and interacts with chaotic streets (Figure 35). She becomes a reinterpretation of a
person in the street and New York Citys disarray becomes a setting that contrasts with the
controlled canine attached to a leash at the models left side. Like many of Kleins street
photographs, it is nearly impossible to recognize the images focal point. Vogues readers
understand that the models garment, which actually is a reinterpretation of clothing worn by an
average person, is the focus of the photograph. The red truck near the model coordinates well
with her bright magenta garments that are separated by her white gloved hand that hails a taxi.
Klein utilizes movement as a device that alters the picture and exaggerates the models pose. In
this moment, Klein recognizes the red truck near the model, uses the vehicle to his advantage,
171
Ibid, 156.
172
Ibid, 157.
173
Ibid, 162.
174
Ibid, 175.
47
and highlights the models actions. The truck appears to mimic the models body position as the
rearview mirror extends away from the trucks body as if it intends to hail a taxicab.
Once viewers look past the analogous red hues worn by the truck and the model, eyes
wander to the cool contrasting blue grey hues and muted reds worn by the city. Viewers take the
recognizable artifacts within the environment and the models behavior into account and realize
that this example presented to them is what is acceptable in society, thus creating a new standard.
Logos and advertisements overlap each other just above the models head, which furthers
readers recognition of this familiar environment. Klein notes the various typographic examples
that contrast each other; the structured street signs block typography against an Asian themed
restaurants neon sign and the red letters contained in individual blocks that appear to spell the
word Capitol. Every element Klein highlights deliberately attempts to blur viewer perceptions
of what reality actually is and what it is not.
At first glance, the image appears balanced until an unfocused backend of a blue and
white vehicle weighs down the images lower left bottom half. Klein uses random pedestrians
again as devices that promote spontaneous atmospheres in his photographs. Various men in grey
suits line up along the right side of the image and remain incognito as street signs conceal their
identities. Chance remains in limbo that at any moment one of these men could step out and
approach the woman. All elements line up perfectly and generate unplanned moments
effortlessly captured by Kleins camera.
The next photograph contains similar elements Klein used in the previous photograph of
the model hailing the taxi (Figure 11). The model, dressed in brightly hued garments like the
previous image, crosses the street, caught between a red convertible cars white fishtail
embellishment and an olive green truck. Like the previous image, it becomes difficult to
48
determine the photographs focus. It could be the model, the man behind the model wearing a
grey plaid suit or the man driving the red convertible eagerly twisting his entire body for a quick
glimpse of the beautifully dressed woman. Klein again captures the streets spontaneity and uses
unaware passers-by as extras for his images. He possesses no interest in the garments he
supposedly photographs as the red convertible partially blocks the models form: she is neither
front nor center and readers have no easy view to examine her fashionable garments. Klein
records societys artifacts and emphasizes the urban environment by reducing the models
importance along with the clothes they wear.
Even though both models pose in the midst of chaos, caught in quick snapshots, both
women evolve into fantastic representations of an idea that Klein blends into reality. The city
represents reality and the models exemplify ideals promoted by Vogue. Klein plays on the idea of
reality through fashion photography, similarly to New York. Just as advertising consumes the
city, the city appears to consume the models. Advertising contributes to a universe available for
nothing more than consumption as the advertisement itself becomes an object to be consumed
according to French philosopher Jean Baudrillard.175 These models embody walking
advertisements that create a distortion between reality and capitalisms seizure of reality. Just as
the man twists awkwardly for a glimpse of the model, he consumes her image as if he would a
flashy advertisement.
The model plays an allegorical roleshe evolves into a representation of a woman, only
she differentiates from a real woman as her body, gilded in modern fashion, is herself an
idealized beauty plucked from a pool of women chosen by Vogue as an explicit representation.
According to Roland Barthes, fashion reinterprets women as symbols. Fashion takes simple
175
Jean Baudrillard. The System of Objects, 178.
49
personal attributes and places them into the forms of adjectives that satisfy psychosomatic
fantasies.176 The model becomes an idealized cultural object and a personified advertisement. 177
Klein contributes to this consumption prototype by placing models in real environments and
converting them into malleable advertisements, like the advertisements in New York, and
deposits them into society as members of the real environment. The models are simulations of
society that eliminate quality and cease true existence as reliable forms. 178 Guy Debord explains
in Society of the Spectacle that pseudo-goods, created by those holding power over society,
form false models and present to society specifically to coax desire. False models over time
embed themselves into society, contribute to collective consciousness, and become examples of
the norm. The models in Kleins images become pseudo-goods exposed to Vogue readers.
They are merely substitutes of reality that perform a character.179 Klein indicates that each
scenario is a farce and a fabrication of reality. Klein admits that while taking these fashion
photographs for Vogue he would think, Look at me, Ma, Im taking a fashion photo. 180 The
models were play-acting as well and producing a parody of society: They werent socialites;
they were making believe they were fashion models. They were like female Buster Keatons
deadpanbut they understood the humor of the situation.181
Kleins fashion imagery contrasts significantly to Avedons 1957 urban vision of a model
under an umbrella leaping delicately from a curb and onto a street (Figure 36). The photographs
premise surrounds the models coat, the product advertised to the masses. Like Klein, Avedon
uses an urban atmosphere as the backdrop to his fashion photographs. Avedon finds a moment
176
Roland Barthes, The Fashion System, 254.
177
Jean Baudrillard, The System of Objects, 179.
178
Guy Debord entry #57 of Society of the Spectacle
179
Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulacrum, 1.
180
181
Ibid.
50
where the street is clear and void of any interaction with a real urban environment. It not only
appears poetic, idealized, and controlledit appears at the very least staged and completely
purified of chaos and stress. Avedon avoids any street sign or decay that would indicate an
unsavory environment. The models pose appears choreographed and glamourized. Images
appear structured and stylized, negated of confusion.
Unlike Klein, Avedon positions himself within a few feet of the model. Klein positioned
himself away from the model, used a telephoto lens in his urban scenarios, and created confusing
environments, which resulted in baffled expressions on his models faces. These elements
together used by Klein create a near snapshot aesthetic as the models become unsure of Kleins
location. A series of sixteen photographs Klein shot for American Vogue includes a set of images
that exemplify Kleins aesthetic. Piazza di Spagna, set in Rome and considered some of Kleins
paramount fashion photographs were intended to illustrate a pair of Italian fashion designer
Roberto Capuccis Op-art inspired dresses (Figure 37 and Figure 38).182 Klein used the Piazza di
Spagnas crosswalk as a perfect setting for its seemingly white painted Op lines contrasted with
the black asphalt street. Klein positioned himself half way up a set of steps near the Piazza,
armed with a 500 mm telephoto lens Hasselbad camera,183 perfect for capturing the unfolding
scene.184 Wearing versions of the same garment, two models, instructed to walk back and forth
over from one end of the crosswalk to the other, feigned surprise as they passed each other. 185
182
At the time of the Piazza di Spagna photos, Op-art was strong in the art world, which managed to trickle into the
moments high fashion styles. The major fashion houses embraced Op art and in many of Kleins imagery from this
period, dramatic contrasts and distortions became further accentuated by solid geometry seen in Op-inspired
designs. (ORawe, 52) According to Roland Barthes The Fashion System, fashion follows four themes that include
art. Art offers the richest inspirational themes in fashions rhetoric utilizing complete eclecticism that remains
familiar. (Roland Barthes, The Fashion System, 240.)
183
The Hasselbad camera, developed in Sweden and originally created for capturing bold perspectives, became
standard equipment used by fashion photographers. (Angeletti, 160.)
184
185
Harrison, In and Out of Fashion, 251.
51
Their dresses perfectly created a vibrant Op aesthetic as the lines of the street mimicked the lines
of the black and white dresses.
Unaware of Kleins exact position, the models endured subjection to the streets
spontaneity. His unknown location allowed the occurrence of accidents to remain possible. Klein
left room for unplanned elements to interact with the models, which included a passerby and a
Vespa, a recognizable Italian symbol (Figure 37).186 A traffic jam occurred along with confused
faces of women seen in the upper portion of the first photograph, and a congregation of amused
men, seen just to the models right (Figure 38). The chaotic nature occurring at the scene
contributed to the models authentic nervousness, along with unwarranted physical contact from
a male passerby who assumed that the models were prostitutes advertising their
merchandise.187 All the while, Klein kept shooting away, enjoying the result of the unexpected
scene. Klein captured an uncontrollable moment in time and grew excited about it, as expressed
by the results.
The resulting grainy and blurry photos showed a high disregard for fashion
photographys established standards, which were intended to focus on the garments in a
whimsical dreamlike princess manner.188 Klein disregarded the typical fantasy embedded scenes
and replaced them with innovative scenarios that simulate realistic situations.189 Fashion and the
viewer merge into similar realms.190 Klein accomplishes this phenomena by deliberately catching
the moments immediacy as he bestows extreme shutter speeds, decenterings, unusual exposure,
and blurring techniques into his photographs, compositionally similar to New York.191 Meant to
186
187
188
Friedl, 60.
189
Barthes, The Fashion System, 241.
190
Ibid, 242.
191
ORawe, 52.
52
present readers with an activity that is defined within the garment and its fabricated
circumstances, a fashion publication offers an identity to the reader stating that if one wants to be
a certain way, one must dress a particular way. The garment signifies the wearers activity and
the particular location.192 In Piazza di Spagna, Klein pairs elegantly dressed models with
unfashionable realism. This gesture mixed with Kleins technical contributions changes the way
readers look at fashion, thus simultaneously modernizing fashion photography.
The same series in Rome features additional street imagery with different perspectives.
Klein displays another powerful photographic method, still adding the realistic street scene into
his compositions; Two Roman Street-Scenes appear slightly choreographed. 193 Klein creates an
awkward and distorted atmosphere that smartly guides all viewers eyes toward the model
located slightly on the left side of both images. Other objects and actions appearing on the street
around the model easily distract viewers. In the first photograph in the order images appeared in
Vogue, a cardboard cutout of popular actor Sophia Loren crosses paths with the model as an
anonymous man grasps Sophias extended arm and upper thigh across the sidewalk and towards
the street (Figure 39). Only the mans forehead, dark hair, and darkened eyes, directly address
curious viewers from over Sophias left shoulder that shields the mans face and maintains his
mystery. The duo appears as if they are in the midst of a sensual dance together. Sophias right
arm seemingly creates a canopy that arches over the model who stands a few feet behind the
couple. The model watches the scene unfold before her as though she were walking into a private
moment between the shrouded man and his cutout girlfriend. On the right side of the models
head, a spherical street sign prohibits movement in any direction, which confronts readers and
assumes that readers require direction. On the opposite side, an analog clock tracks the time. A
192
Barthes, The Fashion System, 249.
Two Roman street-scenes is what Vogue titled both images. (Fashion: People Are Talking About in Rome
193
Vogue, Apr 15, 1960. New York: Conde Nast. 90-91.)

53
wristwatch on the mans wrist delivers the round shape to the compositions right side and
impersonates the analog clock. Both the sign and the clock mimic the models facial expression
and appear as a pair of surprised eyes. The model creates a mirror image of the Sophia Loren
cutout with her legs as she balances her weight on one foot as the other points to the sidewalk,
which further communicates her curiosity to viewers. Just behind the model, a Renaissance
structure identifiable by its varying porticos and flattened faade, emphasizes the models three
dimensionality and echoes the cutouts flatness that creates a distortion among the photographed
objects.
Klein plays on the notion of celebrity as the commodity and an object available for
purchase. The role of celebrity, in this case Sophia Loren, is comprehensible in that the celebrity
is a product, a thing that is produced and that can be consumed, worshipped, and adored.194
Loren, as a cardboard cutout, emphasizes the objective nature attached to fame and the selling of
celebrity. Loren becomes available for visual consumption by Vogue readers, who identify the
popular actor. She appears as a literal object visually consumed by the man holding the cutout
likeness and the model. Loren embodies beauty ideals, just as the model placed within this
scenario exemplifies similar ideals. Loren and the model are media productions figures
invented by the mass media, who pays particular attention to qualities regarded as significant.195
Photography used by the mass media democratizes celebrity production and therefore provides
evidence through mass distribution that the celebritys placement within society is plausible,
which converts the celebrity into social currency and a reliable figure. 196
194
Olivier Driessens. Celebrity Capital: Redefining Celebrity Using Field Theory. Theory and Society 42, (5): 543-
560. 2013. 547.
195
Ibid.
196
Robert van Krieken. Celebrity Society. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2012.
http://utsa.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=981923 (accessed November 05, 2014) 41.
54
The copy written about the imagery describes the scene as one of the giant cut-outs of
Sophia Loren that advertise, provokingly, her latest movie.197 Acting as the real woman, the
model appears as a comparison between reality and fantasy. Vogues description and Kleins eye
plays on the notions that reality is malleable. Viewers see two archetypes represented within the
image: the first is the model who dons the latest fashion and the second Sophia Lorens likeness
as the beauty ideal that appears in popular movies. These two women represent standards that
Vogue beckons its female reader to strive toward and to emulate. Baudrillard explains that this
scenario develops into an avenue that viewers establish relationships between a perceived society
and their actual lives. Collective realities split into a real agency and images that becomes
incomprehensible and gives way to nothing more than a pattern to absorb in a material abundant
world.198 The model and the cutout are decipherable, though they form similar positions and
wear similarly colored garments. Both female archetypes create certain desires within readers
and exemplify how one should dress and look. This image sells desire to Vogue readers as it
avoids true reality and creates anxiety199 even though Klein plays with this notion by placing the
model in a realistic environment paired with the Sophia Loren image. Appearing as a mask that
covers the buildings faade, the flat illusion indicates an archaic fashionable architectural trend
and comments on realitys shallow inspirations. Sophia Loren evolves into a flattened version of
beauty standards popular during this era.
Klein riffs on contradictions that appear in the second image of the street scene duo (Fig.
40). He creates new ways to analyze art and question fashion photography as an art form. A
model dressed elegantly in pearls, a hat and a pair of gloves encounters an oversized painting in
197
Fashion: People Are Talking About in Rome Vogue, Apr 15, 1960. New York: Conde Nast. 90.
198
Baudrillard, The System of Objects, 191.
199
Anxiety is a key element of commodity culture that exists as a mythology that provokes consumers to purchase
products from hunger, boredom, and compulsion. Our anxious selves have desires that commodities feed, in endless
cycles of hunger, satiation, and desire.
55
the midst of transportation by three anonymous men only identifiable by three sets of legs that
appear as extensions of the painting itself. The models reaction parallels the models expression
from the previous image. Both women approach two versions of beauty, the Sophia Loren cutout
that represents a modern version and the painting with its rounded nude bodies signifying
classical beauty. The model perfectly poses herself into a feminine vision and looks toward the
painting. Her light colored garment contrasts with the dark pants worn by the mystery men, the
painting, and echoed by a man dressed as server in a white top walking the opposite direction of
the model. The only spontaneous element of the photograph is the passing server who cannot
resist looking back at the model. This image sees the appearance of another flattened faade in
the background that the Vogue copy identifies as the church of Saint Maria in Paco. In the
photograph, the buildings flattened structure creates a frame that forces the model forward
towards the viewer. Tension builds between the images elements that force the eye to travel
along the painting and towards the model on the compositions left-hand side.
Vogues copy reads that the masterpiece in the foreground is unidentified, but the one in
the center is Fabianis sleeveless white silk dress.200 Three elements collide in this scene: the
painting, which makes a statement regarding Italian culture, the realization that the painting
exists within reality and finally the simulation, represented by the model who creates a
commentary regarding the combined elements. Even though Vogues text maintains that the
paintings title and its artist are unidentifiable, the text eagerly identifies the garments designer,
which forces readers into comparing the two and paying particular attention to modern fashion
worn by a contemporary beauty over the rounded figures depicted in the painting. Klein, on the
other hand, emphasizes that art and beauty exist everywhere, not just in museumsit exists on
200
Fashion: People Are Talking About in Rome Vogue, Apr 15, 1960. New York: Conde Nast. 90.
56
the streets, in architecture and, in unplanned and chaotic moments. Kleins image openly
contradicts Vogues text that accompanies his imagery.
Kleins point of view creates new dimensions and ways of looking at life. Klein clearly
maintains that models serve as powerful hyperreal simulations201 that attempt to resemble and
reinterpret real life. A comparison between the published photograph and an additional
photograph (Figure 41) of the same scenario verifies that Klein plays with simulated and
manipulated realities in these street scenes. Both photographs show the model within a foot of
the painting, exhibiting similar facial expressions each time she passes the artwork. In both
sequences, the server passes the model and never appears in the same spot, which illustrates an
existing fragment between images. The published image shows the model placed closer into the
foreground away from the server as opposed to the additional photograph that confirms the
server was just at her side. Even though the model remains striding alongside the painting, the
server continues moving forward, his eyes never leaving the models shoes, as though he follows
Kleins direction to play along with this imaginary diversion. This photograph draws the viewer
to the model and her garments.
In the unpublished photograph (Figure 41), the model tilts her head and feigns surprise as
she gazes upon the large painting. The model observes the paintings composition that features
two seated female nudes with loosely draped material over their bodies. This scenario draws
viewers attention toward the models facial expression and away from the garments. Under the
painting, only one set of legs make the painting appear as though only one man carries it. His
knee bends in mid-stride, which makes his pant leg rise and expose an unfashionable striped sock
201
Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 23.
57
and a scuffed and worn black leather shoe. Behind the model, the scene remains void of any
additional participants.
In the published version (Figure 41), confusion crosses the models face as she remains focused
on the painting, though this time around she appears somewhat distracted. Her head turns and
faces Klein behind the camera with her eyes remaining focused on the painting. Under the
painting, three sets of legs carry the painting and on the compositions right side, a shadowed and
curious face appears between the painting and a small portion of a building faade. He looks
directly at Klein and the viewer, which adds to a spontaneous effect on the image. The
anonymous face recalls the man holding the Sophia Loren cutout as they both peer over, gaze at
the viewer and possibly to Kleins direction. It appears as though Klein invited participants from
reality to partake in a bizarre fashion fantasy.
The published photograph possesses impromptu elements not seen in the previous
photograph. Between the mens legs, car bumpers and a license plate make an appearance. A
figure in the far background, not present in the first photograph, squats up against the building
and observes the events unfold in front of him. In both images, the model strides across the gritty
street, stained with dirt and littered with cigarette butts. Her elegant and polished appearance
contrasts with the grimy street and surrounding decaying buildings. Both photographs, as well as
the Piazza di Spagna images, follow a distinct sequence that relates closely to film, a genre Klein
masters next.
Kleins fashion photography contributes strange double standards to his career as a
whole. He detested the mass media, yet, he created fashion photographs created especially to
target audiences with the latest trends. He brought an air of dissonance to each fashion
composition he created. Klein aimed to operate within an anti-chic aesthetic and resist
58
fashions all-consuming embrace.202 With all the efforts Klein engaged to make an anti-
fashion photograph, he ended up making fashion photography all the more glamorous
according to Tom Wolsey, an art director Klein collaborated with occasionally. 203 Kleins
photographs are strikingly different as a result that set him apart from other fashion
photographers during the late 1950s. Fashion photography never embarrassed Klein, nor was it
at the center of his career. Fashion photography remains a period for Klein that will likely remain
ambiguous: Its true, I was always putting it down to some extent, but after all, I was well paid,
encouraged, and always did it the best I could. I regret, though, that the restrictions of the period
prevented me from going further.204
202
Harrison, Afterword, 248.
203
Ibid.
204
Ibid.
59
CHAPTER THREE: AVANT-GARDE FILM
According to art historian and curator David Campany, William Kleins still photography
contained the seeds that seamlessly transitioned Klein into filmmaking and allowed his
cinematic vision sufficient time to mature.205 Klein possessed intrinsic tendencies to record
events before and after on film that still photography would not allow.206 His still photographs,
especially his fashion photography, underwent extensive editing at times that Kleins statement
appeared muddled and reinterpreted into the editors vision. Film ultimately extends Kleins
photographs into a richer realm that provides viewers with Kleins razor sharp focus. Chris
Marker, responsible for the publishing and distribution of the New York book, notes that each
and every frame of a Klein film is a Klein photo.207 Any Klein film paused at any given
moment resembles a still photograph. This chapter examines two of Kleins films, Broadway by
Light (1958) and Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (1966) as examples that best exemplify Kleins
commentary regarding mass media influence. This chapter does not analyze all of Kleins films,
which actually continued another thirty years after Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? debuted.
Filmmaking, as opposed to still photography, emphasizes the duration of the frame as a
continuous narrative.208 Both films and still photographs communicate stories to the audience
through visual methods. The difference between the two mediums being that film pushes
storylines further and shares continuous information along with verbal description. By the end of
the 1920s, film had established itself as a medium of popular entertainment and news. 209
Photography evolved into a fixture within printed media that was realized through portraits,
205
Campany, Ninety Seconds
206
Clouzot, William Klein or the Organization of Chaos
207
208
David Campany. Photography and Cinema. London: Reakton Books, 2008. 9.
209
Ibid.
60
fashion and news photography, along with sports and science.210 Both genres differentiate
themselves from each other by relating to time differently. The motion picture tends to unfold in
the present tense as the photograph remains fixed on an object depicted in the past. 211 Film
develops simulated and intangible projections that emphasize still photographys static
properties.
Once both mediums evolved into established mediums, artists began developing methods
that turned filmmaking into experimental output. Klein used film as a way to enhance his still
photography by creating a moving equivalent to photographic experiments he created for New
York. According to Campany, the still photography genre maintains an alliance with avant-garde
film. Together, the two mediums opposed mainstream cinema aesthetics and resisted seamless
storylines.212 Avant-garde film utilized modernist expressive montage fragments that cut out
and then cut together pre-selected parts.213 This resulted in a complex arrangement that
observes, records, and interprets concurrently. 214 Creating a montage that communicated
messages quickly through utilizing the surrounding world appealed to avant-garde filmmaking.
Speed allowed avant-garde filmmaking abilities to manipulate time with endless streams of
imagery, a feature that popular cinema avoided.215 Avant-garde film montages paid close
attention to concepts and juxtapositions, which included reorganizing time and avoiding linear
storylines.
210
Ibid.
211
Ibid, 11.
212
Ibid, 10.
213
Ibid, 34.
214
Ibid.
215
Ibid.
61
Both still photography and filmmaking require subject matter and look to create optical
impressions of the world.216 Popular cinema tends to gravitate toward escapist fantasies while
photography seeks the details and reality present in the material world.217 Motion pictures create
imagery for audiences that originate themselves from painting and theater. 218 Artists gravitate
toward filmmaking with painting and theater knowledge, which appears in avant-garde film.
Klein entered filmmaking as a painter and photographer. His film compositions recall his still
photography aesthetics that create an identifiable signature style and remain in conversation with
his paintings. He entered filmmaking with knowledge of Man Ray and Lszl Moholy-Nagys
films he viewed as a child and was fully aware of the differences between popular cinema and
avant-garde art films. 219
Klein controlled his cinematic projects entirely, including, but not limited to the films
subject matter and presentation. Klein performs as the cinematographer,220 screenwriter, film
poster designer, and editor.221 Film releases Klein completely from moral codes associated with
observation. Klein voices his perceptions regarding the hypocrisy structured by the mass media
through dialogue and continuous imagery showing that the mass media infuses itself into society.
New Yorks unmistakable disdain permeates Kleins first film Broadway by Light and transitions
Klein from being solely a photographer into a filmmaker. Like the photobook New York,
Broadway by Light converts New York Citys most famous street into a readymade film set and
records illuminated commercial cycles that strongly rival the Las Vegas strip. Broadway by Light
216
Ibid, 11.
217
Ibid, 19.
218
Ibid, 21.
219
Heilpern, 10.
220
221
62
manifests itself into a testimony that comments on the power of repetition and persuasion while
simultaneously jesting on the absurd measures advertisers endure to make a dollar.
Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? pushes boundaries further than Broadway by Light and
examines sociological factors involved with manufacturing interests intended for consumers.
Drawing from his career as a fashion photographer for Vogue, Klein transforms his professional
experience into a farce that comments on the mass medias broadcasting power that translates to
audiences. Klein utilizes clichs found within the fashion and entertainment systems and creates
a fantastic fiction with hyper-emphasized stereotypes combined with the absurdity of fairytales.
Both films demonstrate Kleins refusal to succumb to the ideology machine and address his
willingness to answer only to himself. With money earned from Vogue and occasional work he
found shooting commercials for French television, he financed film projects.222 Creative control
allowed Klein full capacity to express his bold and rebellious voice toward convention through
film. Together both films engage Kleins fascination with the image of the city life and dream-
nightmare around him.223
Film grew into an influential medium for Klein during his childhood in New York City.
Drawn to film as young as twelve years of age, Klein considered the Museum of Modern Art his
second home and absorbed all art exhibits, including shows centered on design and
photography, along with films shown at the museum as well.224 Klein watched films of early
influential filmmakers that included Eric von Stroheim, D.W. Griffith, 225 Fritz Lang (creator of
Metropolis), Jean Renoir, and his favorite filmmaker, Charlie Chaplin.226 Claire Clouzot
mentions in her article William Klein or the Organization of Chaos that Kleins cinematic
222
223
Heilpern, 7.
224
Ibid, 11.
225
226
63
vision contains two persistent elements: rage and personality. 227 Though Kleins rage developed
upon his arrival to New York in 1954, by the time he gravitated to full-time filmmaking, his fury
morphed into his preferred expression. Klein gravitated toward experimental methods, an
unexpected perspective, and an innovative approach.228 He provoked his viewers as he allowed
his artistic vision priority over correctness. Film summed up Kleins angry observations and
recognized mass media as an entity that interlaces itself within societys values.
Kleins filmography varies, though it stays within the realms of documentary and fiction
that comments on the fashion system, utopian society, American culture, and imperialism. 229
Already present in his street and fashion photography, Klein acts as an interrogator who
questions societys methods and systems, particularly societys commodity fetishism. 230 Kleins
methods harshly probe subject matter with blunt ferocity that seizes dramatic exposure, resists
traditional documentary methods, and echo methods employed in his New York street photos
and Vogue fashion photographs in his early career. Jonathan Rosenbaum, one of the few film
critics who wrote about Kleins film work, mentions that Klein refused to adhere to particular
and familiar conventional filmmaking methods. Rosenbaum explains that Kleins films offer
viewers glimpses of Kleins anger, aggression, mockery, euphoria, and volatility which allows
new methods to form.231 John Heilpern wrote about Kleins violent and personal methods that
appear in Kleins work.232 Always concerned with pursuing means of demystifying exclusivity
attached with an it brand or person, Klein aggressively sought new methods that would catch
viewers off guard and surprise them. He intertwined reality with fantasy, which allowed him
227
Ibid.
228
Feil, 11
229
ORawe, 50
230
Ibid.
231
Ibid.
232
Heilpern, 7.
64
creative power to translate his photographs spontaneity into his films. Films allow viewers an
opportunity to experience Kleins live interaction with the street. By combining reality with
fantasy, along with the unpredictable streets and Kleins rage, his films venture into avant-garde
film territory. Avant-garde films possess tendencies to allow artists to combine many art forms
into one completed project.233 According to film historian William Verrone, avant-garde films
define roles in contemporary cultural criticism because it will always be political by association
and defiantly anti-authoritarian by nature.234 As Klein continually questions societys tastes and
mass media influence upon society, his films remain in an avant-garde realm. Mainstream
commercial cinema never embraced Kleins films. Klein remained concentrated within his
personal creativity and maintained his unique vision.
Broadway by Light (1958) certainly expressed the artists disdain and rage through a
dizzying look at one of New York Citys most famous and busiest streets as it passes through
Times Square. Klein provides viewers with twelve minutes of mind numbing visuals that
reiterates his aversion to the corrupted nature of post-war big business 235 set to the an energetic
and jazzy score written by French classical music composer Maurice Le Roux that reinforces and
emphasizes the constant blinking and flashing neon signs designed to grab consumers attention.
Filmed at night for nearly two weeks, Klein films the animated signs that inhabit Times Square
and creates a readymade cinema specifically designed to attract the dreams and morals of an
enamored audience.236 Kleins inspiration for Broadway by Light was the New York book,
though this time the city appears to audiences in color. Klein called Broadway one of the most
beautiful and accessible things in New York that simultaneously consisted of brain washing
233
Michael OPray Avant-Garde Film: Forms, Themes, and Passions. New York: Columbia University Press. 2012,
8.
234
William Verrone. The Avant-Garde Feature Film: A Critical History. McFarland and Company, Inc. 2011, 26.
235
Feil, 12
236
65
devices.237 Klein in turn treated Times Squares animated neon commercials as what he describes
as a Duchamp inspired readymade.238
The opening sequence fades in at dusk, just before the jittery light show begins and the
night transforms into a glittery spectacle. Klein focuses on an oversized Pepsi Cola bottle cap
that illuminates brighter and brighter as Times Square succumbs to nightfall (Figure 42). Klein
sweeps viewers into a dizzying portrayal of the street; the film morphs into various illuminating
logos that include familiar household brand names including Chevrolet and Budweiser.
Broadway transforms into a hyperactive sensory environment as thousands of messages compete
for the viewers attention, perhaps similar to Kleins reaction when he returned to the city in
1954 (Figure 43). Le Rouxs musical score emphasizes Kleins message as it changes with each
frame and follows the light movements. As reds, whites, yellows, and blues saturate the screen,
the music provides the same exaggerated auditory effect. Considered the first pop art film,
Broadway by Light presents new conceptual ideas to audiences regarding mass medias
oversaturation in daily life.239
Klein dabbles in an avant-garde perspective as Broadway by Light unusually presents
consumerism concepts in an experimental style. William Verrone explains that for a film to fall
into an avant-garde film category, the film must follow a set of criteria that includes an
experimental style, a directors particular voice, and vision, combining styles and genres, along
with a certain ambiguity. 240 Kleins work with film and photography fits effortlessly into
Verrones prescribed criteria. Kleins methods unmistakably follow an experimental and
alternative way of viewing reality. He is keen to challenge audiences perceptions of the things
237
Campany, Foam Magazine #37, 106.
238
Ibid.
239
Martin Harrison, In and Out of Fashion, Foreword, 253
240
Verrone, 18
66
they see, often taken for granted, in day-to-day life. Broadway by Light takes the illuminated
tourist attraction and exaggerates each aspect of Broadways spectacle. With his own language,
Klein records the animated commercials that line the street designed to grab the consumers
attention. Each frame contemplates every blinking light bulb and illuminated word that provokes
passers-by to observe the spectacle that comes alive the moment night falls. In fact, Broadway by
Light begins at dusk,241 the moment the sun sets and the street becomes alive producing hypnotic
images that astonish and exceed viewer expectations.
In the same manner, Broadway by Light provokes viewers to feel the electric buzz as the
La Rouxs musical score reacts to every light flicker in every frame. 242 Workers captured by
Kleins camera move at light speed as they rearrange marquis letters or replace burnt out light
bulbs that keep the show going (Figure 44). The film continuously recalls New Yorks visual
compositions; each frame filled with electric chaos echoes Kleins subject matter and
compositional tastes. The difference between the book and the film, aside from the real motion
captured on film, is that the film is color, which adds an exciting emphasis to the visuals. Full
color emphasizes not only the animated logos, it crystalizes a specific time in post-war society as
it succumbs to the call of mass consumer fetishism. Broadway by Light challenges newly
accepted cultural regimes as indicated by the films opening text. Klein formulates a description
and creates a hypothesis to attempt an understanding of the meaning within Broadways flash:
The Americans have invented jazz to console death, the star to console the
woman. To console the night they invented Broadway. Every night in
central New York, an artificial sun goes up. Its object is to announce
shows, boasting products, and the inventors of these ads would be very
241
According to Guy Debord, art becomes indendent and great at the dusk of life where art depicts the world in
dazzling colors. (Debord, #188) During the filming of Broadway by Light, modernism began its decline as
postmodernism ushered itself into aspects of daily life. Dusk signifies this change as the first pop film that focuses
on popular product logos.
242
Verrone, 24
67
surprised to learn that the most fascinating show, the most precious object
is transformed by their street signs. The day has its people, its shadows, its
mirages, its ceremonies. He also has his thunder...
Blinking neon signs collaged and layered over more signs emphasize the invention of mass
consumption that allows society to console itself from the burden that death and reality forces
people to address or confront (Figure 45). Klein humanizes and gives purpose to the electric
signs that appeal to the money dominated masses. Out of fear, society spends money, eager to be
a part of something before succumbing to mortal demise. Klein captures New York City,
consuming itself through temples of frenzied consumption that emphasize the mass medias
power over the spectacle.243 New languages communicate a visual language that requires
minimal effort to decipher. A social consumption of imagery never encourages opinions while it
converts itself into new acceptable historical practices. Knowing humans are natural spectators
who use imagery for learning244 and mimicry,245 the mass media promotes a false optimism
through objects and encourages submissive thought. 246 Society responds by praising objects
and accepting the behavior it regulates as it brushes reality away, jettisoning potential dangers
attached to feeling.247 Like the models posing for Kleins Vogue fashion photos, the electric signs
present themselves as mirages that occupy real life. Klein identifies societys preoccupation with
commodities as they navigate through Broadway, a communal space occupied by a continuous
superimposition of colorful blinking layers. These elements evolve into an acceptable basis of
society. A fabricated community forms and allows superficial imagery to penetrate morality and
243
Debord, Section 7, Entry 174.
244
Hugh Elliot describes this behavior as a herd instinct. Human beings learn habits through an education that
includes mimesis and repetition of enforced actions. (Hugh Elliot. Human Character. London: Longmans, Green
and Co. 1922. 272.)
245
Guy Debord explains in Section 9, Entry 219 that humans possess innate infantile needs that fuels imitation.
246
Debord, Section 8, Entry 196
247
68
promote extravagant pretentions, thus rejecting true reality.248 Ahead of his time, Klein
visualizes the brazen results brought on by an oversaturated and image obsessed world in
Broadway by Light.
The signs themselves provide consumers with an abstract monetary representation, a
place to spend money and boldly suggest what to buy. Guy Debord describes this process as a
pseudo-use already in place in areas of society. 249 Desire, an idea manufactured by society and
the mass media, fools people into believing that they lack exuberance. Consumers who long to
possess the exuberance held within an object will find that once the excitement fades, they will
search the same path that offers solutions to obtain their desire. The mass media creates a
materialist tension that creates urgency and desire that persuade consumers into submission.
Klein identifies and reports on the darkness that opposes the truth held within the daylight and
that humans illuminate with light, which Broadway illuminates with animated signs that provides
an artificial sun.250 Artificial light emanates itself into a weapon used by the mass media that
highlights products that remedy the despair and loneliness attached to the darkness. Scary
shadows fade as darkness evolves into a spectacular carnival Klein highlights and shows
audiences.
Klein refuses to present his evidence in a boring format; instead, he uses Broadways
spectacle against itself. Broadway by Light cannibalizes the street spectacle by hyper-realizing
and reorganizing Broadways visuals as a twisted reflection of itself. As if Broadways light
show were a boring print advertisement, Klein places motion upon the street with his camera
lens. He emphasizes the commercial animations in one particular frame that coats signs over
248
249
Debord Section 2, Entry 49
250
Klein compares Broadways lights to daylight provided by the sun. Once darkness falls, the commercial light
cycles come to life and illuminate the street with artificial light. (Broadway by Light. Produced and distributed by
Argos Films, Paris. Color, 35mm., 12 minutes. 1958.)
69
signs, as they blink and dance together in unison (Figure 46). Like a Dadaist collage, each
illuminated sign consists of its own impromptu light show that seemingly compliments the other.
To accomplish this effect, Klein edited varying film sequences and created a colossal medley of
neon signs. He took these disorienting sequences and paired them with real angles shot from the
street itself to attempt to mesmerize and hypnotize his viewers (Figure 47). Klein physically
stands on a chosen corner where he aligns his camera and perspective with a real collage formed
on the street itself. The atmosphere darkness surrounds the signs making it nearly impossible to
decipher where the street separates itself from the signs. Letters and lights merge and disappear
into nearby signs. Klein emphasizes this point and never allows the signs to separate.
Klein possesses a knack for pairing blinking, attention grabbing graphic signs with
directional signs that include traffic lights, and pedestrian crosswalk signs (Figure 48). He
creates a commentary that consists of subliminal directions provided by the animated
commercials and the directions provided by the street signs that direct pedestrians to WALK or
DONT WALK. This emphasis echoes the signs that scream, BUY and Taste It! Toast It!
A Budweiser sign encourages viewers to buy the product and emphasizes that the brand exists to
Serve You! the consumer. These juxtapositions embody Kleins vision and commentary
regarding post war society. All messages shape societys thoughts and tastes in an encouraging
method that quenches the fear held within the darkness. Klein employs the streets electric
automatism that comes alive with messages that reject reason or moral concern.
Captured by Kleins camera, energetic action word structures calculated by advertisers,
vigorously entice consumers with phrases that include Pops Up! for Kleenex brand facial
tissue (Figure 49) or You can be that glides across animated tickertape that lines building
rooftops (Figure 50). Words like Pull-Up and beauty sell consumers ideas of self-
70
improvement only if they invest in these products. Illuminated light sequences paired with an
amusing Planters Peanuts mascot projects fun and novelty, though they serve as devices of
enticement and persuasion, which continues the amusement park atmosphere (Figure 51). Coca-
Cola dazzles the evening sky with a light show that encourages potential buyers to drink up.
Mesmerized by the workers who change the movie house marquis lettering, Klein
dedicates a lively sequence to these anonymous figures in the midst of action. The mens dark
silhouettes contrast with the glowing white gridded boards as well as the ladders they balance on
to complete their tasks (Figure 52). Klein realizes opposing patterns as he documents contrasting
lines between the marquis horizontal grid and the ladders vertical positions. The men changing
the letters move across both objects with accuracy and effortlessness set to La Rouxs musical
score. The music changes and reflects a playfulness, ostensibly amused with the moving letters
of popular actors names. Klein documents these men as if they were performing a show just for
the street.
Soon after the marquis scene ends, Klein introduces an unexpected surrealist and dream-
like sequence that breaks away from the previous overstimulated scenes and gives viewers a
mellow interpretation of Broadway. The film transforms into a poetic trance as Klein turns his
focus toward the reflections the neon signs cast on outside objects that includes car surfaces,
shop windows, and street puddles (Figure 53). Just as Klein captured his trance through
photographic stills for New York, he illustrates this metamorphosis through a softened sensation
that exemplifies mental mind numbing as it digests Broadways dramatic presentation. Klein
transitions into this slowed scene with one final jerk as if overloaded with information he may
drop the camera. The surface reflections create distorted sequences that differ completely from
looking upward towards the lights that emblazon buildings and rooftops. Some reflections
71
capture signs and lights layering over the other like transparent juxtapositions. A car passes a
sign front and reflects a different set of signs located on the opposite side of the road, which
contributes to a layered effect (Figure 54). The music slows and responds to the footage as its
pace decelerates and mallets softly strike a xylophone to create an auditory echoing dreamlike
state.
Towards the end of the sequence, unfocused lights fade away to nothing, which signifies
the dreams end as dawn quenches the night. As though the spell from the night had worn off,
Klein revisits the same signs unlit and exposed to daylight (Figure 55). In 1930, Andre Breton
wrote that eventually human minds blend life and death, the real and the imaginary, the past and
the future and cease recognizing these elements as contradictions.251 Klein records Broadway as
a tangible materialization of a true surreal environment.
After Klein completed Broadway by Light, he grew progressively interested in
filmmaking and by the early 1960s, he created several short films for The Front Page, a
documentary program for French television.252 One film in particular inspired his next project
Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?, Kleins first feature length film.253 The fifteen-minute
documentary work titled The Fashion Business (1962) recorded the Parisian fashion industrys
production and retail presence realized through Yves St. Laurents presentation of his second
collection.254 According to film critic Claire Clouzot, the film accounts venal American buyers,
obnoxious wealthy clients, omniscient magazine editors, exalted photographers, and for the first
time, documents fashion behind the scenes, an aspect of the fashion presentation process never
251
H.H. Arnason and Marla F. Prather. History of Modern Art. 4 th ed. New York: Prentice Hall and Harry N.
Abrams, 1998. 307.
252
After Broadway by Light, Klein made an additional short film, How to Kill a Cadillac, and several fifteen-minute
segments for Front Page, a French television show that covered current affairs. The Fashion Business (1962) and
Department Store (1963) were separate segments filmed by Klein that reported on the fashion industry. (ORawe,
Eclectic Dialectics, 52)
253
Ibid.
254
Ibid.
72
before seen prior to Kleins film.255 Klein creates a satirical fictional account that plays on the
fashion system in Polly Maggoo. Keeping the behind-the-scenes scenarios and abhorrent fashion
insiders in mind, Klein pairs these situations with his eye for chaos and his disregard for the mass
media machine. Compiled into a single film, Polly Maggoo addresses the deliberate brain-
washing of a shallow, surface obsessed culture.256 The film critiques invented cultural
phenomena as a satirical examination of fashion, the mass media, and fairytale delusions.
A conceptual fashion show opens Polly Maggoos first scene, which takes place in a
building that resembles a cocoon-shaped, stylized beehive. Spectators filter into the beehive
interior and settle into two-story seating, ready to view absurd sheet metal creations that real
women would declare unwearable (Figure 56). Simultaneous glimpses behind the scenes show
the fashion designer, along with his assistants, armed with vice-grip plyers feverishly tightening
the bolts that hold his creations into place on naked models. The angular and tube shaped
garments resemble costumes that Hugo Ball himself would likely wear during an improvised
Dada performance (Figure 57). For the simulated fashion show scene, Klein needed garments
that would reflect timelessness and an irrationality that would remain outside of the fashion
sphere.257 By refusing acceptable fashions manufactured in wearable materials, Klein
exaggerates the fashion worlds ridiculous trends that generate profits and create ideologies.
The title character, Polly, along with other models, undergoes preparation to walk the
inner space of the beehive before powerful fashion editors, writers, and buyers. During the
dressing process, one model experiences the danger of conceptual fashion as her garment slices
her upper arm and she begins bleeding. The designer suggests that they hide the inconvenience
with make-up base, (which will cover up the cut as though it never happened) just after
255
256
Marcel Feil, William Klein: His Own Man. 12
257
Martin Harrison, Foreword, In and Out of Fashion, 253
73
screaming at an assistant to use hairspray sparingly to prevent spotting the metallic garment
(Figure 58). Klein uses this scene as a device that highlights the fashion industrys exploitative
nature. Knowing that the garment holds potential dangers that may harm wearers, the designer
insists that the model carries on, knowing his reputation lies on the chopping block of acceptance
or rejection. Beneath the dazzling and fashionable surfaces, Klein points out the ridiculous guises
that cover imperfections like Band-Aids.
The eccentric and influential editor of a successful magazine, Miss Maxwell, resides
among attendees awaiting the shows beginning. In several interviews, Klein makes no qualms
that Miss Maxwell, played by American film and stage actor Grayson Hall, is not a fabricated
stereotype he created; her entire demeanor draws from Diana Vreeland, infamous editor-in-chief
at American Vogue during Kleins employment at the fashion publication.258 Klein shamelessly
admits that Vreeland drove him, along with her employees completely crazy. 259 Described by
Klein as the high priestess of fashion,260 Vreeland possessed power she utilized frequently as a
platform and declared what was in and out of fashion. After the procession of aluminum clad
models glide the runway, Miss Maxwell exclaims Magnifique! blessing the collection with her
invaluable approval as the rest of the audience follows suit. Bold and outlandish statements
declared by Miss Maxwell directly reference Vreelands knack for creating absurd word
associations and eccentric fashion stories that she used for describing and selling fashion. During
a fashion shoot scene, staged at a cemetery, Miss Maxwell announces that the fashion story
premise questions whether or not fashion is dead in Paris. Polly, the title role played by real
fashion model Dorothy McGowan, emerges on the scene dressed in a morbid black hooded
garment and wears white dramatic make-up with dark exaggerated eyes and mouth (Figure 59).
258
ORawe, Eclectic Dialectics, 52
259
Campany, Klein on Klein, 109
260
Ibid.
74
Other models participating in the mock funeral echo Pollys appearance dressed in similar garish
fashion. Polly lies in an open horse drawn carriage that travels along a dirt road as the dramatic
model procession follows. Later on, Miss Maxwell will dictate the fashion story headline,
Fashion is dead! Long live fashion!
Polly, subject to tastes and fashions approved by Miss Maxwell, fulfills the role of a
living object who simultaneously is desirable and vulnerable to the public and the fashion
industry. Recognized by male admirers walking the street, strange men hound Polly and attempt
to lure her with vulgar pick-up lines and odd gifts, which include a can of shaving cream. One
admirer goes a step further and snips a lock of hair with scissors from an oblivious Polly who
waits to cross a busy street. Klein executes the scenes by utilizing aesthetics seen in his fashion
photographs and imagery shown in New York. Filmed in black and white, like his New York
photos, Klein positions himself at a distance away from the unfolding scene between Polly and
the male nuisances. The action takes place amongst the unsuspecting public walking the same
streets and not a film set. Like his fashion photographs, Klein plays on reality by pairing a
fabricated event within the unknowing public sphere. It appears the actors have no idea where
Klein has positioned himself, which adds to a realistic and impromptu sensation that
communicates in the film sequence. The camera captures surprised reactions from clueless
passerby who react as Polly takes the shaving cream gift and sprays it all over the givers face,
throws the can at him, and then walks away (Figure 60). The actors and passers-by appear
unaware of Kleins whereabouts as scenes unfold, which adds to the chaotic results and authentic
responses by both parties. Klein converts real people into improvised film extras; much like his
New York photos turned the average person into an interesting subject. Each exterior shot
evolves into an interesting performance.
75
Polly Maggoos characters assume autonomous roles, encouraged by Klein, which gives
the film an experimental and impulsive quality. When Polly arrives at her apartment, fresh from
battling hopeful suitors wondering the street, she discovers a camera crew chaotically
rearranging her furniture and setting up equipment inside of her apartment. A man introduces
himself to Polly as Gregoire, the host of Qui Etes Vous? a superficial television program that
follows a chosen person for a week as the basis of the shows focus. As the show lacks an exact
premise, Qui Etes Vous? displays itself as a venue that broadcasts dumbed down entertainment
for public consumption. Jared Rapfogel describes the role of the TV show as a method that
takes aim at a shallow, surface-obsessed culture brought to the masses by the media machine,
which assumes a posture of truthfulness.261 The show itself embodies another vehicle that the
mass media utilizes, much like the fashion industry, with purposes that influences mass tastes.
Like a fashion magazine, the TV shows content endures extensive edits that shape Polly into a
malleable figure suitable for television and interesting enough to entertain audiences.
After Gregoire introduces himself, the production team pokes and prods Polly as though
she were an object. Gregoire instructs Polly to behave naturally, introduce herself to the camera,
and give audiences a summary of her life story. The Qui Etes Vous? host, Jean Jacques, conducts
a short interview after Pollys monologue, during which he states that Pollys life as a model is
nothing more than a masquerade. Polly responds, every time they take a picture of me, theres a
little less of me left to Jean Jacques statement. Polly believes that these images of her dressing
up as an image invented by a magazine editor slowly strips away who she is and how her image
appears to society. No longer owning her image, Polly fulfills someone elses absurd vision.
Between Polly and Jean Jacques, both characters allude that Pollys surfaces mimic real life
261
Rapfogel, Cineaste, 21
76
Polly the model reflects superficial ideologies, creating an illusion for the masses, which
broadcasts to society whether it be through Vogue magazine or television.
Once Pollys raw footage arrives back at OK-TV, the production studio, the footage
undergoes extensive editing and converts Polly into a silly caricature of herself. The producers
instruct Gregoire to pull off the mask and bring forth either the person that does not exist or the
lunatic that does. Polly Maggoo, not only a manufactured image at Vogues or Harpers
Bazaars disposal, evolves into a manufactured character for television audiences. Television
takes reality and reimagines it as entertainment for the masses. Rapfogel suggests that this
phenomenon represents and encourages disengagement. 262 By using Polly as the subject of Qui
Etes Vous?, the television show insists that its purpose relies on exposing the fashion industry as
a sham, when in fact, it harbors identical intentions as the fashion industry itselfthe creation of
entertainment and the projection of particular tastes. Gregoire tells the show producers the
surface is reality too. Thats life. In doing so, Gregoire suggests that those in mass media are
aware that audiences cannot distinguish between actors and the characters they portray (the real
Polly and the edited Polly) since television imitates life. Just as advertising informs the public
what it should consume, television informs the public how it should live.
The producers, along with Gregoire, see Polly as a humanized advertisement that
circumvents reality.263 Gregoire subjects Polly to a series of psychological evaluations that will
theoretically determine Pollys true character. Just as advertising defines and redefines dreams,
Gregoire finds that the illusion of Polly sways him into a state of altered behavior (he believes he
loves her) and finds himself unhappy and lacking. This scene illustrates the effects that dreams,
manufactured by the media machine, have on unsuspecting audiences. An object that one cannot
262
Rapfogel, 21
263
Baudrillard, System of Objects, 184
77
have forces society to examine itself and creates new needs that society suddenly wants.
Gregoire desires Polly, whom he intends to consume like an object without ever knowing the real
Polly. The audience learns this information when Polly gets upset with Gregoire who confesses
that he only wants to sleep with her. Pollys image generates voids and creates anxiety within
Gregoire.264
Klein weaves realizations of advertising and editing with the unrealistic hopes attached to
the Cinderella fairytale illusion. Kleins fairytale is comprised of an inconsolable prince, Prince
Igor, who worships Pollys image. Prince Igor enters his first scene riding into the frame on a
white stallion and gallops to a halt as the prince retrieves an image of Polly from his coat. He
gazes longingly at the image he handles with care and kisses it intently. We learn that Polly is
nothing more than another object Prince Igor desires. He enters his private quarters littered with
various imagery that addresses his identity as royalty through blown-up images of himself with
his mother, the queen, and random images of Polly strewn across the space. Prince Igors
infantile changeability surfaces as he walks through the room playing with robotic toys briefly
before settling into a chair to read a book about Pollythe object he cannot immediately obtain.
He enters into a daydream and imagines an outrageous scenario of Polly arriving into his
kingdom by train. Dressed in fine furs, Polly gazes out the train window waving the Borrowdine
national flag as she robotically poses like model, just as Prince Igor imagines her alive straight
from the magazine pages (Figure 61). Compared to her real interactions with Gregoire, Polly
behaves as the fashion model in Prince Igors imagination initially conceived by the mass media,
264
According to Jean Baudrillard, advertising possess soothing properties by means of controlled social semantics.
As a result, society generates an anxiety it seeks to calm, institutes freedom of desire (which never truly free is
imaginary), and feeds on pleasure. (Baudrillard, System of Objects, 194)
78
the persona sold to society. For the prince, Pollys manufactured image interprets a trace of
reality and acts as a footprint of who Polly the person truly is. 265
The Cinderella concept manifests itself throughout Polly Maggoo as nothing more than a
cheap illusion that society interprets when imagining identity and desires. Fashion and television
embody frivolous intentions, and society members lives evolve into a mass media fueled
delusion of itself. One scene particularly describes the Cinderella concept in depth as part of the
Qui Etes Vous? research performed and orchestrated by the producer. A sociological expert
explains the Cinderella concept to the camera crew in relation to fashion and desire. The expert
describes the fairytale as an outlet society submits and suffers through in order to mold itself,
blend in, and obtain desires. Cinderellas premise realizes ultimately that the beneficial worth of
small feet and beauty enables the discovery of love. To find a good partner, one must act and
look a certain way to get what they want. Cinderella embodies fashions erotic nature as the
expert explains that the princes arousal, brought on by the lost slipper, evolves into a personal
fetish concerning his future wife. For Prince Igor, the magazine image of Polly is the lost glass
slipper that symbolizes his fetish. Fashion and television imagery create shared desires that
embrace popular styles and behaviors that allow blending into society.
Klein continuously attacks the fashion industry through statements realized within the
actors dialogue. During the editing scene of Pollys raw footage, Gregoire and Jean Jacques
discuss the politics within the fashion industry. Jean Jacques exclaims that fashion, once created
for the rich, now suits the youth culture, especially the teenage population. The models look like
boys without hips and breasts. Jean Jacquess monologue explains fashions conspiracy placed
within the fashion model:
265
Susan Sontag describes the footprint as an impression of the real, which acts as a trace of something that is
directly stenciled off of the real. (Sontag, 154).
79
Fashion is about money and illusion. To sell and dupe people, the
industry invokes its powerful magic: the model. Paid 20,000 francs
an hour, this courtesan for the eyes, this mirror of fantasies, Madonna
of the photo spread, keychain to the dream world: the cover girl.
Jean Jacques suggests that these realizations appear in Qui Etes Vous? as a timeline sequence
that describes Pollys role in fashion and fashions role in society. Jean Jacques claims that
fashion only celebrates a teenagers sexual awakening. Gregoire and the Qui Etes Vous?
producers ultimately try determining whether or not Pollys life is a real Cinderella fairytale set
in the fashion realm. Gregoire accuses Polly of always posing, never being just herself, and that
she lacks the ability to decipher between reality and fantasy. He determines after subjecting her
to pointless psychological tests that Polly is a narcissist living a Cinderella delusion. Gregoire
claims that Polly is nothing more than a doll used for dress-up to dupe other women.
After Gregoire continuously compares Polly and Cinderella, Polly questions whether the
Cinderella scenario applies to her at all through an imagined dream sequence. The Cinderella
scenario exists as guidelines that young girls and women view as the model that imitates the
perfect life. Polly recognizes that both daydreams allow her to weigh the options between
marrying the prince and marrying Gregoire and deciding which partner would best fulfill her
Cinderella dream expectations. Klein begins the dream sequence by freezing Pollys face as she
conducts her beauty rituals that maintain her youthful looks and that include treating her brittle
and limp baby fine hair with lemon and beer, which adds body and shine for an attractive
appearance. Different images appear superimposed over Pollys face as a female narrator dictates
which attributes attract attentiona large mouth, a round face, everything good is round.
80
Eyebrows balance the face, your expression is important. Be careful, your eyes speak volumes.
(Figure 62) Unbeknownst to Polly, she resists the realization that she can mold herself how she
wants and instead absorbs information dictated to her by Miss Maxwell, Gregoire, and Jean
Jacques.
Polly wears a dramatic princess inspired dress with oversized tulle bloused sleeves and a
ball-gown length skirt and stands with the prince atop a domed building that overlooks Paris.
All this is yours, my darling, the prince says to Polly. Polly thanks him and he replies, Its
nothing. Come. They launch from the building towards the sky and travel along the Parisian
streets lined with street signs, clocks, and Parisian landmarks that include the Seine River and the
University of Paris (Figure 63). Polly understands that the prince can give her anything since he
possesses vast power and a deep bank account. As she reels from the magnificence of the
princes gifts, he drops her in front of Gregoires family home, I must leave. Have no fear. I
love you and he rides away on a white horse down the Parisian streets.
Polly enters Gregoires home and finds Gregoire, along with his family, seated at a long
table ready to eat a French culinary feast. The end of the table closest to Polly has a dead calf
with its tongue sticking out, and at the other end of the table rests a TV. As Gregoire introduces
Polly to his family, Gregoire and Polly appear on the TV as Gregoire announces each family
members name (Figure 64). The televisions significance recalls the superficial nature attached
to Polly that Gregoire always sees within her. For Polly, the television develops meaning that
recalls the circumstances that bought her together with Gregoire. Like the relationship with the
prince, Pollys relationship with Gregoire could never be real. Gregoires family members
conduct themselves obnoxiously, and they recall false accounts they hear about Americans,
which demonstrates their arrogant tendencies toward foreigners. Gregoires father discusses a
81
story about an American man who discovers his mother after twenty-five years by a red mark he
placed on his mother previously. The story begins in the dining area and then shifts to a TV
screen at Jean Jacquess news desk as he reports an identical story he learns from watching
Gregoires family (Figure 65). The scene returns to the dining area and the family watches Jean
Jacques report the story as news (Figure 66). Klein created this seen as commentary regarding
the news storys frivolity and questionable origins. Information on television develops into facts
that the masses believe and rely on for knowledge. Nonsense disguised as knowledge, broadcasts
to the masses and develops into potentially powerful ideologies consumed like objects promoted
by advertising.
Polly Maggoo ultimately suggests that Pollys shelf life as top fashion model and
desirable object is limited by changing tastes within the mass media. Like the multitudes affected
by the mass media, Polly accepts the fables sold to her and misses her opportunity to meet Prince
Igor as she rushes to the street with her packed suitcase in tow, prepared to run away with the
Prince. In the meantime, Qui Etes Vous? discovers Pope Paul VI, the subject for next weeks
show, Miss Maxwell determines that the next phase of fashion does not include Cinderella
scenarios, and the prince moves on to worship another young and beautiful female to satiate his
desires.
Both Broadway by Light and Who Are You Polly Maggoo? confront the mass media
machine with firm determination and propose that its dark objectives truly exist. Broadway by
Light marks Kleins increasing disregard for New York and the citys transformation into a
parody of itself that sinks into advertising oblivion. Klein recognized New Yorks self-imposed
novelty as a city that shamelessly consumes its own image and a self-proclaimed remarkable
destination. Who Are You Polly Maggoo? acknowledges mass media strategies wholly woven
82
with fables and trends that examine the persuasive nature that hovers between realism and make-
believe. Klein, employed by Vogue when Polly Maggoo debuted in France, fully confirmed his
increasing estrangement from the fashion world through the film. Not long after Polly Maggoos
release, Klein left Vogue and photography altogether and pursued filmmaking full time.
Kleins subject matter never changed throughout the genres he worked within; his films
tended to relate back to his photographs. He remained engaged with the moving figure, rather
than the posed figure stigma always applied to the photographic medium. Motion, a key element
used in Kleins work, bestowed edginess to his street and fashion photographs that allowed his
vision room to translate seamlessly. Klein engaged the human body and its relation to the streets
through photography and film. Whether Klein chose a quick snapshot or a montage to express
his ideas, his approach remained distinctive and ahead of its time. For Klein, the images premise
never changedonly the toolsfrom paintbrush to a handheld camera, and finally a movie
camera.
83
CONCLUSION
William Klein expressed a distinctive disdain for the mass media throughout his career.
Surprises found within the streets instantly developed into miraculous moments that enhanced
Kleins voice and his message to viewers. Klein communicated societys capricious nature as it
absorbed ideologies that fashion, television, and product advertisements sold. Photography
allowed him exploratory opportunities, which included grainy oversaturated greyscales and
extemporaneous compositions that became his visual signature. His photographic aesthetics
challenged and altered the modern canon of documentary and fashion photography. 266 He
delivered innovative methods to street and fashion photography genres that housed a fierce edge
with an unconventional fresh perspective, which included unusual compositions, blurry focus,
distortions, accidents, and provocations.267 He embraced grainy enlargements, wild cropping
and made photography appear dirtier, riskier, and alive.268 Kleins techniques appear today
through modern artists who utilize Kleins methods within contemporary street photography and
fashion periodicals.
Kleins observations show genuine interests regarding the ideologies that permeate the
consumer sphere. He seamlessly blends raw observation and critical visual framing to create a
commentary about life.269 Art historical research regarding Kleins work gives weak arguments
concerning his obvious disgust with the mass medias influence over society and mentions few
details concerning his blatant repugnance. His imagery exposes how signs seen on a daily basis
form our realities. Parallel to Baudrillards work, Klein documents signs that create an immense
to-and-fro movement, which confronts social codes, interrogates the masses, and verifies our
266
Ibid.
267
268
Ibid.
269
Harrison, 131.
84
actions.270 His imagery depicts billboards, products, and slogans that act as surveillance and
encourage consumption.271
Overwhelmed by New York Citys altered atmosphere after an eight-year absence in
Europe, Klein discovered a city that lost its close-knit appeal and had transformed into a self-
righteous and narcissistic society swayed by mass media influence. Klein only scratched the
surface with Life is Good & Good for You in New York: Trance Witness Revels. Working as a
photographer for Vogue, Klein gained first hand access to areas where ideologies develop. He
combined his edgy and spontaneous street photography aesthetic with fashion, which resulted in
exciting and innovative imagery that Vogue featured within its pages. Under Alexander
Libermans direction, Kleins collaboration with Vogue visualized Libermans intent to
modernize the magazine. Kleins knack of combining idealized fashion models with the
compulsive streets forced fashion photography to confront reality. His photographic strategy
emphasized fashions absurdity by blending real chaotic urban scenarios with the fashion
industrys serious faade. Filmmaking allowed Klein to document the undeniable power of
pictorial images to penetrate individual lives, which began with Broadway by Light, Kleins
colorful New York documentary extension. Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? allowed Klein
narrative control that resulted in a relentless satire keen on highlighting the mass medias
influential devices and hypocrisy. Kleins confrontational documentary style spilled into his
fashion photography and film cinematography, which created a renewed vision for both genres.
Kleins early paintings and light drawings emerged within the European art gallery circuit
that included Milan, Paris, and Brussels, which exhibited Kleins appreciation for bold graphic
compositions. When he switched away from painting and embraced photography, Kleins
270
Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 75.
271
Ibid.
85
photographs continued making appearances within the European art circuit through solo exhibits
and group shows after New Yorks debut. Since New York never found an American publisher,
the photobook bypassed American audiences who never encountered opportunities to familiarize
themselves with Kleins portfolio.272 American audiences have had few chances available to
view Kleins work in a gallery setting on American soil. Kleins first exhibit in the United States
occurred in San Diego (1977), along with other major exhibitions in a few locations that include
Tucson (1980), New York (2002), Milwaukee (2010), and most recently Brooklyn (2014).273
More major American museums should be encouraged to curate exhibitions that emphasize and
acknowledge Kleins contribution to the photographic medium. Not only did Kleins
photographic career begin in America, he contributed several innovations to modern
photography aesthetics that paved the way for several emerging fashion photographers in the
1970s, including Helmut Newton and David Bailey, 274 and Japanese street photographer Daido
Moriyama,275 whose unorthodox methods have enjoyed wide acceptance in photography.
Published and distributed in Europe and Japan, Kleins travel books have been widely
exhibited there, but Arthur Ollman could write as late as 1987 that Kleins photographs had only
been known to American audiences for less than ten years in an exhibition catalog for the San
Diego Museum of Modern Art.276
Unfortunately, this fact remains true in 2014. American institutions avoid enlightening
scholars on Kleins artistic contributions to photography even though his photography and film
career began in New York City, which documented post war society, and continued through
272
Klein returned to Paris and showed friend Chris Marker, of the small publisher Petite Planete Imprint, a maquette
of New York. Marker threatened to quit his job if the book was not published. (Campany, William Kleins Way, 5)
273
Klein, ABC, 180.
274
275
Simon Baker. Double Vision. Tate Etc.; Autumn 2012; Issue 26, 63.
276
Arthur Ollman. William Klein: An American in Paris, 1.
86
imagery produced for American Vogue. Authors of art historical textbooks seldom mention
Klein or the photographic genre itself. When textbooks discuss Klein, the information written is
never more than a couple of paragraphs.277 Therefore, if textbooks lightly discuss Klein and the
photographic genre in academic art and cinema historical texts, greater distances grow between
modern art history and scholars. Martin Harrison wrote in 1991 that Kleins films have not yet
entered mainstream cinema history, nor have his film contributions been fully acknowledged.278
In 2014, Kleins work remains relatively unknown and requires additional research and
recognition within the United States. Otherwise, Europe maintains the right to claim Klein as its
own.
277
The textbooks referenced in this paragraph include the following popular and widely used art historical books:
Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being by Johnathan Finberg, History of Modern Art by H.H. Arnason and Marla F.
Prather, and Art History by Marilyn Stokstad and Michael W. Cothren.
278
87
Figure 1. William Klein in his studio with son Pierre, two years old, Paris, 1965
88
Figure 2. William Klein, Moving Diamonds, 1953
89
Figure 3. William Klein, Domus magazine covers, 1952-1960
90
Figure 4. New York, front cover and caption booklet
91
Figure 5. William Klein, Barns and houses, Island of Walcheren in Holland, Vogue, April 1954
92
Figure 6. William Klein, New Photo-Graphic Eye: William Klein, Vogue, November 15, 1954
93
Figure 7. Baron De Meyer, unpublished photograph for Vogue, 1919
94
Figure 8. George Hoyningen-Huene, Harpers Bazaar, May 1945
95
Figure 9. Richard Avedon, Junior Bazaar, September 1946
96
Figure 10. William Klein, Antonia, Simone Daillencourt, Vogue, 1961
97
Figure 11. William Klein, Anne Ste Marie, New York, Vogue, 1962
98
Figure 12. William Klein, Reflecting colour changes: these spring fabrics, Vogue, 1957
99
Figure 13. William Klein, Evelyn Tripp, Paris, Vogue, 1958
100
Figure 14. Eugene Atget, Children Playing, Luxembourg Gardens, Paris, 1898
Albumen print, 17.8 x 20.6 cm
101
Figure 15. Eugene Atget, Storefront, avenue des Gobelins, 1925
Matte albumen print, 23 x 16.8 cm
102
Figure 16. Robert Frank, Canal Street New Orleans, 1956
103
Figure 17. William Klein, Blacks + Pepsi, Harlem, New York, New York, 1955
104
Figure 18. William Klein, Somewhere on Broadway (in front of Gimbels),
New York, New York, 1955
105
Figure 19. William Klein, Trace of White Balls on Black, Paris, 1953
Geletin silver print mounted to aluminum.
106
Figure 20. William Klein, Big Face in the Crowd, New York, New York, 1955
107
Figure 21. Robert Frank, ElevatorMiami Beach, The Americans, 1955
108
Figure 22. Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rome, Italy (Children paying cowboy with guns), 1951
109
Figure 23. William Klein, All over, New York, New York, 1955
110
Figure 24. William Klein, Candy Store, Amsterdam Avenue, New York, New York, 1955
111
Figure 25. William Klein, Super-market, Broadway, and 72nd Street, New York, New York, 1955
112
Figure 26. William Klein, 4 Men in Caf, Oil on canvas, 1949
113
Figure 27. Willaim Klein, 4 Men in Caf, (close-up), Oil on canvas, 1949
114
Figure 28. William Klein, Fifth Avenue, New York, New York, 1955
115
Figure 29. New York caption booklet front cover
116
Figure 30. William Klein, No Mans Land, New York, New York, 1955
117
Figure 31. William Klein, Foreground, the midtown docks, New York, New York, 1955
118
Figure 32. William Klein, Wherein the ladies, Christmas shopping, New York, New York, 1955
119
Figure 33. William Klein, New Photo-Graphic Eye: William Klein, Vogue, November 15, 1954
120
Figure 34. William Klein, Vogues Eye View of Stretching Time, Vogue, January 1, 1961
121
Figure 35. William Klein, The High-Keyed Coat, Vogue, July 1, 1958
122
Figure 36. Richard Avedon, Homage to Manasci, Harpers Bazaar, September 1957
123
Figure 37. William Klein, Simone + Nina, Piazza di Spagna, Vogue, 1960
124
Figure 38. William Klein, Simone + Nina, Piazza di Spagna, Vogue, 1960
125
Figure 39. William Klein, Simone Daillencourt wearing Fabiani, Vogue, 1960
126
Figure 40. William Klein, Simone Daillencourt wearing Fabiani, Vogue, 1960
127
Figure 41. William Klein, Simone Daillencourt wearing Fabiani, (unpublished) Vogue, 1960
128
Figure 42. William Klein, Pepsi bottle cap, Broadway by Light, 1958
129
Figure 43. William Klein, Layered neon signs, Broadway by Light, 1958
130
Figure 44. William Klein, Men change light bulbs, Broadway by Light, 1958
131
Figure 45. William Klein, Juxtaposed signs, Broadway by Light, 1958
132
Figure 46. William Klein, Street collage, Broadway by Light, 1958
133
Figure 47. William Klein, Street collage, Broadway by Light, 1958
134
Figure 48. William Klein, WALK Broadway by Light, 1958
135
Figure 49. William Klein, Kleenex Pops Up! Broadway by Light, 1958
136
Figure 50. William Klein, You Can Be Broadway by Light, 1958
137
Figure 51. William Klein, Planters Peanuts mascot, Broadway by Light, 1958
138
Figure 52. William Klein, Men changing marquis letters, Broadway by Light, 1958
139
Figure 53. William Klein, Signs reflected in a street puddle, Broadway by Light, 1958
140
Figure 54. William Klein, Signs reflected on a car surface, Broadway by Light, 1958
141
Figure 55. William Klein, Dawn, Broadway by Light, 1958
142
Figure 56. William Klein, Beehive structure, fashion show, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966
143
Figure 57. William Klein, Aluminum dress, fashion show, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966
144
Figure 58. William Klein, Put some base on it, fashion show,
Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966.
145
Figure 59. William Klein, Paris is dead, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966
146
Figure 60. William Klein, Keep the shaving cream! Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966
147
Figure 61. William Klein, Polly visits Borrowdine, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966
148
Figure 62. William Klein, You have no idea how important your expression is
149
Figure 63. William Klein, Polly and Prince Igor fly over Paris,
Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966
150
Figure 64. William Klein, Gregoire and Polly on television, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966
151
Figure 65. William Klein, Jean Jacques news desk, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? 1966
152
Figure 66. William Klein, Gregoires family watching Jean Jacques,
153
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VITA
Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Vanessa Ryan Langton enlisted in the United States
Navy upon the completion of high school to earn money for college and to serve her country.
Honorably discharged from military service, Langton went on to earn a Bachelors degree in
Communication Design (Graphic Design) at Texas State University and her Masters degree in
Art History and Criticism from The University of Texas at San Antonio. Langtons future plans
include pursuing a Ph.D. program.

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BEAUTY AND THE STREET: THE PHOTOGRAPHS

AND FILMS OF WILLIAM KLEIN

APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:

AND FILMS OF WILLIAM KLEIN

VANESSA RYAN LANGTON, B.F.A.

MASTER OF ARTS IN ART HISTORY

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO

experience and provided me with a new personal interest in that genre.

valuable recommendations, which enriched the final draft of this project.

I am greatly indebted to David Campany, internationally renowned art historian and

AND FILMS OF WILLIAM KLEIN

Vanessa Ryan Langton, M.A.

Supervising Professor: Scott Sherer, Ph.D.

as a street photographer, fashion photographer for Vogue magazine, and as an avant-garde

powerful methods that penetrate daily life.

List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii

Chapter One: Street Photography ..................................................................................................15

Chapter Two: Fashion Photography ..............................................................................................39

Chapter Three: Avant-Garde Film .................................................................................................60

Figure 2 William Klein, Moving Diamonds, 1953 .................................................................5

Figure 3 William Klein, Domus magazine covers, 1952-1960 ..............................................5

Figure 4 New York front cover and caption booklet ...............................................................6

Figure 7 Baron De Meyer, unpublished photograph for Vogue, 1919 ...................................8

Figure 8 George Hoyningen-Huene, Harpers Bazaar, May 1945 ........................................8

Figure 9 Richard Avedon, Junior Bazaar, September 1946 ............................................8, 48

Figure 10 William Klein, Antonia, Simone Daillencourt, Vogue, 1961 ..................................9

Figure 13 William Klein, Evelyn Tripp, Paris, Vogue, 1958 ...........................................10, 44

Figure 15 Eugene Atget, Storefront, Avenue des Gobelins, 1925 ..........................................15

Figure 16 Robert Frank, Canal Street New Orleans, 1956 ....................................................16

New York, 1955 ......................................................................................................19

Figure 21 Robert Frank, ElevatorMiami Beach, The Americans, 1955 .............................26

Figure 26 William Klein, 4 Men in Caf, Oil on canvas, 1949 ..............................................31

Figure 29 New York caption booklet front cover ...................................................................31

Figure 33 William Klein, New Photo-Graphic Eye: William Klein, Vogue,

November 15, 1954 ................................................................................................39

Figure 34 William Klein, Vogues Eye View of Stretching Time, Vogue,

January 1, 1961 ......................................................................................................43

Figure 41 William Klein, Simone Daillencourt wearing Fabiani, (unpublished) Vogue,

Figure 42 William Klein, Pepsi bottle cap, Broadway by Light, 1958...................................65

Figure 45 William Klein, Juxtaposed signs, Broadway by Light, 1958 .................................67

Figure 46 William Klein, Street collage, Broadway by Light, 1958 ......................................68

Figure 47 William Klein, Street collage, Broadway by Light, 1958 ......................................69

Figure 48 William Klein, WALK, Broadway by Light, 1958 ............................................69

Figure 50 William Klein, You Can Be Broadway by Light, 1958..................................69

Figure 55 William Klein, Dawn, Broadway by Light, 1958 ..................................................71

Maggoo? 1966 .......................................................................................................73

Maggoo? 1966 .......................................................................................................81

mass media broadcasted to society.

influence on Klein overall.

photographed. Never using camera flashes, Cartier-Bresson embraced unobtrusive methods

Cartier-Bressons images were never premeditated and relied completely on unplanned

Cartier-Bresson for the New York photos.13

training, self-guided in part by studying theoretical publications, consisted of Laszlo Moholy-

Kleins pictograms appeared on several covers of Domus (Figure 3), an Italian

returned to New York City to pursue a new architectural-sculptural technique presented by

the large sizes Klein desired for his work.21

first feature story in the magazine.

accents, strange and satisfying forms.24

to himself as well as his reaction to them.26

Klein headed back to Europe to try his luck there.

contemporary periodical that appealed to readers.32

fashion photography reveals an outsiders commentary about fashion.

had happened before, acknowledging the photographers unique approach to fashion