Lee Gallery Exhibits Photographs by Leonard Freed
WINCHESTER, MASS. – “: Vintage Photographs by Leonard Freed of African Americans and the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s” will be on view at Lee Gallery, One Mount Vernon Street, November 21 to December 22.
Freed is one of America’s great photojournalists. He was born in 1929 in Brooklyn, NY, and as a young man he studied painting and graphic design. Although he originally intended on becoming a painter, he became interested in photography as a student of the influential art director Alexey Brodovitch.
One of his first bodies of photographs was of Hasidic Jews living in Brooklyn in 1954. He showed the work to Life magazine, which introduced him to Cornell Capa, and Capa, in turn, introduced him to Magnum. Freed moved to Europe in 1956 and began working on assignments for publications including Paris-Match, GEO, London Sunday Time magazine, and Der Stern.
In 1962 Freed went to Berlin upon hearing that a wall was being erected to divide the city. While taking a now famous photograph of a an African American soldier standing alone in front of the wall, the irony struck him: African Americans at home were marching and protesting for civil rights and in Germany an African American soldier stood ready to defend his country.
Freed and his family left Europe for the U.S. shortly afterwards and began taking photographs in Harlem, Washington DC, and eventually throughout the South. This body of work documented the plight of the African American and was published in 1968. The book, , sold over 60,000 copies.
Over the years Freed published 11 more books and has displayed his work in several national and international group exhibitions as well as 25 solo exhibitions. His photographs can be found in public collections such as the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.; the International Center of Photography in New York; the Metropolitan Museum in New York; and the Bibliotheque National in Paris. Freed is a member of Magnum and continues to photograph today.
Lee Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday 10 am to 5:30 pm. For information, call 781-729-7445.
