Leonard Freed

Freedom Now, Washington, DC, 8/28/63

1963

Leonard Freed is considered one of the most prolific and timely photojournalists of his generation. Born in Brooklyn, he traveled to Europe for the first time in 1952, where he discovered photography. In 1954 he moved to Little Italy on the lower east side of Manhattan, where his love affair with Italian culture began. The photographs expose Freed’s love of the Italian people. In photo after photo, the daily life, rituals and traditions of Italians are expertly frozen in time by the eye of such an accomplished photographer. The Italians finds scenes of weddings, birthdays and everyday life exposing their inner lives. His photographs illuminate an entire set of habits intertwined with tradition that are symbols of a broader culture and an entire country. Freed’s career began shortly after World War II with subjects as diverse as his travels. Freed first came to fame in the United States documenting...

Leonard Freed is considered one of the most prolific and timely photojournalists of his generation. Born in Brooklyn, he traveled to Europe for the first time in 1952, where he disc...

Woman Protestor, March on Washington, 1963 by Leonard Freed, is a 14" x 11" gelatin silver photograph, signed and stamped on verso (back of photo) by the estate, Brigitte Freed (wife of the photographer). The photo is in Leonard Freed's book “This Is the Day: The March on Washington'' (p. 50). Leonard Freed enjoyed documentary storytelling and as a "concerned photographer" his work demonstrated humanitarian concerns. The photographer travelled to New York, Washington, D.C., and throughout the South, capturing the daily life of African-Americans. Documenting the 1960s Civil Rights Movement from the East Coast to the Deep South, Freed’s photo essay culminated in the book Black in White America, which contributed to Freed's becoming one of the well-known documentary photographers of 20th Century America. After Freed’s death in 2006 his widow, Brigitte Freed was inspired to compile a book on the March on Washington from her late husband’s archive when she heard then-Senator former President Barack Obama remark to an audience of civil rights activists, “I stand here because you walked.” The March on Washington series is a powerful visual testimony, capturing protests that culminated in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream'' speech, delivered at the base of the Lincoln Memorial. Provenance: Freed archive. *** Artist’s Bio: Leonard Freed (1929-2006) was an American photographer from Brooklyn, New York. His "Black in White America" series made him known as a documentarian, a social documentary photographer. Freed worked as a freelance photographer from 1961 onwards and as a Magnum photographer Freed traveled widely abroad and, in the US, photographing African Americans (1964-65), events in Israel (1967-68, 1973), and the New York City police department (1972-79). Freed's coverage of the American civil rights...

City Prison, 1965 by American photographer Leonard Freed is a vintage gelatin silver, signed verso (back of photo) by the photographer. It is an iconic image from the photographer's ...