New York Colour 1952 by Ernst Haas

beautiful shots from mid-century nyc — love the abstraction and coloration of the first photo. m.

Digital imagery, colour correction and post-production are so commonplace as to be second nature to the photographers of today, and it takes quite a stretch of the imagination to conceive of a time when colour film was still an experimental medium. When Life magazine approached Ernst Haas to shoot New York in colour in 1952, it was very much an avant garde project, but one that the Austrian immigrant embraced.

Haas, who had arrived in America the year before, had risen to prominence with his hard-hitting 1949 photo-essay Homecoming Prisoners of War, compiled in his native Vienna as a 26-year-old. Now, in a new country brimming with optimism and with the dark shadow of Nazi persecution behind him, colour film seemed like stepping out into the light.

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Artist Ellsworth Kelly, Master of Hard-Edge Abstraction, Dies at 92

one of the greats… rest in peace. m.

The American painter and sculptor Ellsworth Kelly passed away on Sunday at the age of 92. Kelly died of natural causes at his home in Spencertown, New York, his gallerist Matthew Marks announced. He is survived by his husband Jack Shear and his brother David.

Kelly is considered one of the most influential American artists of the 20th century, known for his colorful geometric abstractions.

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