William Klein Woman and Saks (1955), 2001 signed limited edition print

  

Iris print on Velin d'arche paper. Signed and titled on front, numbered on verso. An accidental photographer with no formal training, William Klein. Got his career off the ground in the fifties by breaking the mainstream rules of photography.

City scenes were cropped and overexposed, and the subjects - whether it was a fashion model at Piazza di Spagna in Rome or a group of New Yorkers celebrating St. Patrick's Day - were often out-of-focus and shot at a skewed angle. Klein's work was ground-breaking and during the following seven decades he rose to become one of today's most influential photographers. The series'Barbara' and'New York' visualise two of the artist's much-loved themes; fashion portraits of Barbara Mullen and urban residents of the American metropolis, a series which won him the prestigious Prix Nadar prize in 1957 Klein work is now a great investment opportunity.