Robert Mann Gallery Opens Fred Stein PARIS/NEW YORK Exhibition Today, 5/10

Robert Mann Gallery has announced its upcoming exhibition - Fred Stein: PARIS/NEW YORK. The exhibition is on view from May 10 to June 30, 2012, with an opening reception tonight, May 10 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Virtuoso of the Leica, Fred Stein is a largely unsung master of a generation of photographers whose talents were swept across Europe by the dark geopolitical events of the 1930s and 1940s, only to land in the safe haven of New York. Captured with verve and wit, an eye for the poignant as well as the surprising, Stein's images of the urban life and iconic portraits of the luminaries of the 20th century are ripe for rediscovery. With a selection of vintage prints spanning over three decades, Fred Stein: Paris / New York will introduce 21st century audiences to the range of the photographer's work.

Born in Dresden, Stein and his wife immigrated to Paris in 1933 under the pressure of increasingly untenable conditions in Germany and his being unable to pursue his career as a lawyer. It was in the French capital that Stein realized his vocation as a photographer. Taking to the streets of Paris with a Leica that the couple bought for each other as a joint wedding present, Stein made images steeped in the poetry of the city - every bit the equal of his contemporaries Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ilse Bing, and André Kertész. Whether depicting a lonely figure along the quays of the Seine or the abstract plays of light on a cobblestoned intersection filtered through the "new vision" of the era, the photographs from the 1930s show how sensitively attuned Stein was to the rhythms of the metropolis. Displaying both the isolation of those down on their luck as well as moments of spontaneous warmth and community, Stein's humanistic outlook found initial expression in the intellectually rich milieu of pre-war France.