Fred Stein

"I first met Fred when we were both refugees fighting the totalitarian Nazi regime through the rather poor means we had. In his time he was very much in the avantgarde, a brilliant photographer inspired by his quest for justice and his concern for truth so clearly reflected in his photographs." Willy Brandt, 1983 Fred Stein (1909, Dresden – 1967, New York) was a master of the art of street photography. As an early pioneer of the hand-held camera, he captured poignant moments in the street life of two of the world's great cities: Paris and New York where he lived after fleeing from Nazi Germany. This same immediacy infuses his penetrating portraits of the great personalities of the era, among them Albert Einstein, Georgia O'Keeffe, Marc Chagall, or the portraits of Gerda Taro and Robert Capa, recovered in the legendary Mexican Suitcase. Stein's images are a vital document of the 20th century and an important part of photo history. Among the museums where his photographs can be found are the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington; the International Center of Photography, New York, the National Portrait Gallery, Washington; The Center for Creative Photography,Tucson; the Musee Carnavalet, Paris; the Jewish Museum, New York. Stein left behind a complex and existensive oeuvre which this publication presents comprehensively for the first time. This new edition is released on the occasion of the premiere screening of the documentary film: Light out of Darkness: The Photography of Fred Stein.