Research Note - Lee Friedlander

Lee Friedlander
HISTORY/BIOGRAPHY - (https://fraenkelgallery.com/artists/lee-friedlander)
Lee Friedlander, born in 1934, began photographing the American social landscape in
1948. With an ability to organize a vast amount of visual information in dynamic compositions,

Friedlander has made humorous and poignant images among the chaos of city life, dense landscape

and countless other subjects. Friedlander is also recognized for a group of self-portraits he began in

the 1960s, reproduced in Self Portrait, an exploration that he turned to again in the late 1990s, and

published in a monograph by Fraenkel Gallery in 2000. Friedlander’s work was included in the

highly influential 1967 New Documents exhibition, curated by John Szarkowski at the Museum of

Modern Art. Included among the many monographs designed and published by Friedlander himself

are: "Sticks and Stones, Lee Friedlander: Photographs, Letters From the People, Apples and Olives,

Cherry Blossom Time in Japan, Family, and At Work." In 2005, Friedlander was the recipient of the

prestigious Hasselblad Award as well as the subject of a major traveling retrospective and catalog

organized by the Museum of Modern Art. In 2010, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

exhibited the entirety of his body of work,

Friedlander's Work

Friedlander's work consisted of a large range of photographs that featured random, everyday people living their domestic lives. He documented everyday life. Within all of the images he featured himself physically in one way. His images were a form of self portraiture because of this.

This first image shows a woman walking out of a building with reflective walls. Through the reflections you can see Friedlander
taking the photo. Within this image, you can see everyday life occurring and also the photographer within. The photographer's face however is hidden by the camera.

         This next image is simply of a glass wall and a set of doors. Again you can see the reflections of Lee Friedlander within the glass. This is how he featured himself within this image. His face is covered by a white rectangle however. I think this is a poster that has been placed on the glass. Even though Friedlander is in all of his images in some way, his face is not featured in any of them. 

         This final image shows a man looking out of frame. His shadow is on the wall and the reflection of the camera is also. Even though Lee isn't in the image physically, the camera is. The camera represents Friedlander and is a metaphor for him being in the image.