CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/7/2016

Double Elephant 1973–74

In his 1973 introduction to Lee Friedlander's portfolio for Double Elephant Press, Walker Evans wrote, "Lee Friedlander behaves so subtly with a camera; his pictures are clad so plainly in his own original style, that you wonder just how his mysterious effects are produced. Wondering, you are brought simply to the fact that the wellspring of all art is forever mysterious—even to the artist… Bemusing and sometimes dazzling are these prints from Leica negatives. Seeing a brace of them, it becomes clear that this photographer artist is to be taken seriously even while he is grinning—because he uses photography with deadly aim to reflect and record only his own very special, personal vision of his world. It is oddly refreshing, unselfconsciously striking, and unpredictably adventurous." Featured image is "Shadow – New York City" (1966), reproduced from the deluxe new edition from Steidl, © Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco & Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne.