
Canopy
<p>Saul Leiter was a painter and photographer associated with the New York School of photography during the second half of the 20th century. Unlike other photographers of that time, who focused on capturing urban anxiety, Leiter sought out a serene, poetic beauty in his images of the city. The use of color film also set him apart from most of his contemporaries, although the almost monochromatic cityscape seen here takes his already subdued palette to an extreme, leaving only the brake light of the car as a reminder of color. Leiter heightened the drama of pedestrians battling a snowstorm by cropping the scene with the outline of the canopy under which he took the photograph.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1958
- Medium
- Silver dye-bleach print
- Dimensions
- Image: 34.8 × 22.9 cm (13 3/4 × 9 1/16 in.); Paper: 35.6 × 27.8 cm (14 1/16 × 11 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Saul Leiter
Artist

Printmaking
Saul Leiter was an American photographer and painter who pioneered color photography in the 1950s when the medium was considered marginal to serious art practice. Working in New York, he developed a distinctly modernist approach to color, layering translucent planes of hue and compositional restraint that treat the urban street as an abstract field. His photographs and paintings share a meditative quality, often framing fragments of architecture, figures, and reflected light with an emphasis on chromatic relationships over narrative. Leiter's formal investigations anticipate concerns that would dominate postwar abstraction while remaining rooted in observed reality.
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More by Saul Leiter
Snow Window
1959 · Silver dye-bleach print
Untitled
1958 · Chromogenic print
Walk with Soames
1958 · Silver dye-bleach print
Untitled
1955 · Chromogenic print
Untitled
1955 · Chromogenic print
Untitled
1955 · Chromogenic print
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Saul Leiter
- Year
- 1958
- Medium
- Silver dye-bleach print
- Dimensions
- Image: 34.8 × 22.9 cm (13 3/4 × 9 1/16 in.); Paper: 35.6 × 27.8 cm (14 1/16 × 11 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1958-116286
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified





