William Klein: Klein + Vintage + Fashion
In celebration of the centennial of legendary photographer and filmmaker William Klein, Howard Greenberg Gallery will present Klein + Vintage + Fashion, an exhibition of nearly 50 photographs made between 1954 and the mid-1960s. On view from November 19, 2026, through January 27, 2027, the exhibition brings together Klein’s groundbreaking street photography and influential fashion work, including rare vintage prints being shown in the United States for the first time.
One of the first photographers to place fashion in the context of the street, Klein rejected the studio conventions of his era. He photographed models in unpredictable urban settings, where movement, architecture, chance encounters, and unexpected juxtapositions reshaped conventional ideas of elegance. In the exhibition, avant-garde fashion assignments will be shown alongside his gritty documentary work, illuminating the dynamic exchange between the two practices.
Made in New York, Paris, Moscow, and Puerto Rico, the photographs share Klein’s signature high-contrast black-and-white style, pronounced grain, assertive framing, and striking use of signage, reflections, and dramatic shadows. Predominantly vintage prints will be complemented by painted contact sheets, dye transfers, and platinum prints, offering a multifaceted view of his experimental approach to photography and later practice.
Klein + Vintage + Fashion is jointly presented by Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, and Grob Gallery, Geneva, uniting two galleries with longstanding connections to Klein. Howard Greenberg Gallery presented its first solo exhibition of Klein’s work in 1992. David Grob met Klein in Paris in 1978 and remained close to him throughout his life.
About William Klein
Born in New York City in 1926, William Klein’s legendary career began in 1954 when Alexander Liberman, then the creative director of Condé Nast, saw an exhibition of Klein’s work in Paris, where Klein was living and had briefly studied with the painter Fernand Léger.
Returning to New York as a photographer for Vogue magazine, Klein let loose on the city, taking fashion photography in a whole new direction; capturing beauty and the grotesque all within wide-angle and telephoto shots. Taking the models out of the studio and onto the streets, his revolutionary techniques pioneered a new vision.
Widely acknowledged as a significant innovator in the history and design of the photo book, Klein published his first book Life is Good and Good For You in New York in 1956. Capturing the rough and tumble of daily life, Klein’s brutally honest images caused a major a sensation. Three more books were published, each with photography from a different city, Rome in 1958-59, followed in 1964 by Moscow and Tokyo 1961 (reissued in limited edition in 2014 by Akio Nagasawa Publishing).
William Klein was also an accomplished and highly respected filmmaker, beginning his foray into the moving image in 1958 with the first Pop film Broadway by Light. Klein went on to produce feature films and documentaries including Qui-Êtes Vous Polly Maggoo?, 1966, a satire about the fashion world; Far From Vietnam, 1967; Muhammad Ali, The Greatest, 1969; The Little Richard Story, 1980, and Messiah, 1999.
The recipient of numerous awards, Klein was honored with a Commander of Arts and Letters in France in 1989, the Medal of the Century by the Royal Photographic Society in London in 1999, and he received the International Center of Photography Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2007. In 2012, he received the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award at the Sony World Photography Awards.
Work by William Klein is in the collections of many institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Klein lived in Paris until his death in 2022.
