Berlin, Germany, 1961 by Leonard Freed, is a 14" x 11" gelatin silver print, signed and stamped on verso (back of photo) by the estate, by Brigitte Freed (wife of the photographer).
The photograph of an African-American soldier in Berlin is from Freed's seminal book Black in White America (p. 6). For Freed the image of the soldier jump started the longer series.
Freed was looking forward to capturing the African-American experience while he was in Berlin in 1962, documenting the building of the Berlin wall. Noticing a black soldier standing in front of the wall, the photographer witnessed how the soldier was readily defending America abroad, while back in the US African Americans were fighting racial segregation. For Black in White America Freed travelled to New York, Washington, D.C., and throughout the South, documenting the movement.
His Black in White America photography series contributed to Freed's becoming one of the well-known “concerned photographers” in the USA in the 20th Century.
Provenance: Freed Estate
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Artist’s Bio:
Leonard Freed (1929-2006) was an American photographer from Brooklyn, New York. His "Black in White America" series made him known as a documentarian, a social documentary photographer. Freed worked as a freelance photographer from 1961 onwards and as a Magnum photographer Freed traveled widely abroad and, in the US, photographing African Americans (1964-65), events in Israel (1967-68, 1973), and the New York City police department (1972-79). Freed's coverage of the American civil rights movement is well-known as are his photo essays on New York, Italy, Germany, The Kate Series, among others.
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