Web Work #6- William Klein

I found William Klein interesting and extremely funny. His friends also thought that of him as they were growing up. He was born to a poor Jewish family on April 19, 1928. He was the poor family living in an Irish neighborhood. His other family members were wealthy. Most of them were lawyers. His father had a clothing business, but that did not get them much and it ended up failing in 1928. As a Jewish boy living in an Irish neighborhood, William always felt alienated from the mass culture. Apparently he was very sarcastic as a kid and from what I have found William is still very sarcastic. William is known for his ironic approach to both media and his use of unusual photography. In his career he started out as a painter and had wide success with that. William then turned to photography. His pictures were often blurred or out of focus. Williams’s negatives were usually over exposed as well. I like Williams take on photography. He uses wide angles and back then it shocked the established order of the photography world. This is what made him earn his reputation as an anti-photographer’s photographer. Inspired by Moholy-Nagy and Kepes, he began to put paintings and photos side by side and abstracting them. This is when William Klein met the painter and director, Alexander Liberman, of Vogue at one of William’s Parisian sculpture shows. The sculptures were kinetic light panels on photosensitive glass. Alexander told William to come to New York to discuss a job. That is how William began his career as a model photographer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4wieOa_Kog

William also left photography for awhile and made film. He made his first film in 1966. Klein directed his first feature film, Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? He was a director, writer and actress in some of his films. Here is a list of some of the films he has made: • Messiah • Muhammad Ali: The Greatest • The Little Richard Story • Mr. Freedom • The Model Couple