Ernst Haas's color works reveal the photographer's remarkable genius and remind us on every page why we love New York. Born in 1921 in Vienna, Haas immigrated to the United States in 1951, making New York his home for the rest of his life. Leaving behind a war-torn continent, Haas used the new medium of color photography to capture a city pulsing with energy and humanity on every block. Haas, a member of the famed Magnum Photos cooperative, who would goon to become the fourth president of the agency is widely considered a pioneer of color photography and a master of Kodachrome film.
Some of the photographs included here appeared in the first color issue of Life magazine, in 1953. His one-man exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, in 1962, was the institution's first on color photography. As these photographs demonstrate, he was unparalleled at capturing mid-century New York, In both its grit and glory. One of the most accomplished photographers of the twentieth century, Haas transgresses the borders between the artistic and the everyday ; through his lens, street detritus and torn posters am reimagined as abstractions, and all matters of New York—commuters, street peddlers, taxi cabs—brim with lyricism and dramatic tension.
Inside these pages you'll find many photographs that were never before published in a book, and some that have never been seen outside of Haas's archive. They have a lasting impact on what we, and the world, see as distinctly New York. Ernst Haas's New York City color photographs are both a tribute to a bygone era in the city's history and a proclamation of his buoyant vision of the future. These photographs continue to resonate, now seemingly more than ever.