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February 4, 2004
Magnum Photographer Leonard Freed
Presentation and Discussion, Wechsler Theater,
Mary Graydon Center
 In
honor of Black History Month, Leonard Freed spoke about his lifetime
of using photography . In 1962 he went to Berlin to shoot the wall
being erected. It was here first that he thought about the plight
of the African American, he saw an African American soldier standing
in front of the wall and it struck him
that at home in the US, African AMericans were struggling for civil
rights, and here in Germany an African American soldier was ready
to defend the USA. This made him interested in following the plight
of the African Americans, documenting Harlem, DC and all throughout
the South. These photos were later published in 1968 "Black
in White America". His work is found in collections including
the Smithsonian, International Center of Photography, NY, the Metropolitan
Museum in NY, Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. He has shown in museums
and galleries across the globe, including Canada, France, Israel,
Italy, England, Netherlands.
Born into a working class family of radical Jewish
Eastern European immigrants, Freed at first wanted to become a painter.
After trips to Europe and North Africa, he returned to the US and
in 1954 studied in Alexei Brodovitch's "design laboratory."
Brodovitch told Freed he "needn't pay, just attend". Edward
Steichen, Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, bought
three of Freeds photos for the Museum. Telling him after a conversation
of two hours, that he was one of the three best young photographers
he had seen and advised Freed to remain an amateur as the other
two were now doing commercial photography and were not now interesting,
"preferably, be a truck driver", he said. More>>
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to Magnum Photos website>>
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