Opening reception Friday, November 7th, 6 - 8 pm. Book Signing & Informal Artist Talk with Michael Kenna Saturday, November 8 at 11:00am *Signed books available from Saul Leiter (will not be in attendance)

Jackson Fine Art is pleased to present work by two masters of the medium: Michael Kenna and Saul Leiter. Kenna's subject is the global landscape, while Leiter is a creature of the urban landscape, his primary subject for over fifty years. For the current exhibition, both photographers will show work of New York City, Leiter's shots from the 1950s and 60s and Kenna's work dating from recent years.

Saul Leiter came to photography through painting in the 1940s, his first camera on loan from Richard Poussette-Dart, renowned abstract painter of the New York School.

Beginning with abstract compositions of artfully arranged garbage, Leiter made the street his central focus in his personal work throughout the following decades. Working in black and white, but mostly in color, his compositions retain the disciplined lyricism of the painter's eye, notably his use of selective focusing and color arrangement.

Leiter rose to prominence as a skilled fashion and advertising photographer in the 1950s, working for Harper's Bazaar among others. Unlike other successful masters of the era including William Klein and Louis Faurer, Leiter did not differentiate much between his editorial assignments and personal work.

Michael Kenna, born and trained in England, lives in Seattle, but travels the world for his photographic projects. Trained at the London College of Printing, he has focused on creating exquisite prints of landscape.

Kenna has taken his Hasselblad camera in search of hard to capture scenes, whether the remote mountains of Hokkaido in Japan or the stillness of pre-dawn New York. Devoid of people, his work nevertheless conveys a harmonious relationship between the wild and the manmade. He studies his subjects in depth and thinks photographically in series. His publications, spanning decades, reveal his interest in revisiting certain geographic locations, especially Japan, that inspire him most.

Raised in the industrial north of England, he has learned from Bill Brandt's moody mid-century images, but translates that dour energy into lyrical views of gardens and industrial complexes alike. His images of the Ratcliffe Power Station (2004) are as profound as his recent publication on Mont St. Michel (2006). He has photographed Le Notre's gardens outside of Paris, as well as the Ford Plant at River Rouge, made famous in the 1930s images by Charles Sheeler. His gift for balancing geometry, weight and detail lend his subjects an air of timelessness. Another recent project, Calais Lace (2003) combined images of the lace-making industry with lace-like landscape imagery from that region. In all Kenna's work, the sense of place remains paramount.

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Saul Leiter's early black and white work was shown by Edward Steichen at MoMA in 1953, and by 1957 has showed his color slide images in lectures at the Museum and elsewhere. He retained a foothold in the painter's realm, showing his color work at Samuel Kootz Gallery. Included in many exhibitions on fashion photography, he has also had retrospective exhibitions at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Milwaukee Art Museum in recent years. He continues to live, paint and photograph in New York.

Michael Kenna, lauded with international awards and retrospectives the world over, Kenna is included in all the major photography collections. A Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters (France), he recently celebrated with two thirty year retrospective exhibitions in England and Japan.