Lee Friedlander

Zander Galerie is pleased to present an exhibition of selected works from Lee Friedlander’s acclaimed series Letters from the People. Born in 1934, Friedlander is regarded as one of the most influential photo­graphers of our time and a keen chronicler of the American way of life. His distinctive visual language defies formal conventions, transforming the everyday cacophony of modern life into new aesthetic structures. Through numerous exhibitions—including the seminal New Documents show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1967 alongside Diane Arbus and Garry Winogrand—and through major international retrospectives, Friedlander’s work has profoundly shaped our understanding of subjective documentary photography.

The black-and-white photographs in Letters from the People explore the omnipresence of text and language in public space. Whether on shop windows, billboards, street signs, or graffiti, Friedlander turns the written messages that animate urban life into the focus of his artistic inquiry, celebrating the diversity of social expression. His compositions are complex yet strikingly clear. Words and letters often reflect in glass, overlap with passersby or architectural forms, creating a dense visual field that mirrors the simul­taneity of urban perception.

By positioning textual elements as a central graphic force, Friedlander transforms the seemingly mundane into a vivid aesthetic experience. Typography becomes a protagonist; communication itself becomes the subject. In doing so, Letters from the People extends the artistic lineage of Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, and Helen Levitt. The series unfolds with a methodical rhythm—progressing from single letters A to Z, through numbers one to ten, to words and sentences. This sequence forms a polyphonic panorama that conveys far more than the sum of its individual images. The title Letters from the People alludes to the expression for citizens’ letters addressed to politicians or public institutions, a democratic gesture that Friedlander translates into the visual sphere.

His documentary approach combines formal precision with an eye for ironic juxtapositions. Friedlander develops a visual rhythm reminiscent of jazz—free-flowing yet structured. He captures not only what is intended but also the incidental, the peripheral, and the imperfect, all of which contribute to a fuller sense of reality. “Photography is a generous medium,” the artist once remarked—a sentiment that encapsulates the openness and curiosity guiding his lifelong practice. The exhibited series stands as a milestone in Friedlander’s oeuvre, a visual archive of American everyday communication oscillating between prag­ma­tism and poetry: from stark informational signage to ornate lettering, from public declarations of affection to raw graphic expression. First published as a book in 1993, Letters from the People has been widely exhibited, for example at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (Montreal), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the Museum of Modern Art (New York).

In addition to Letters from the People, the exhibition also features the early collaboration Photographs and Etchings by Lee Friedlander and Pop Art artist Jim Dine (born 1935). In this dialogue between two artistic temperaments, 17 gelatin silver prints by Friedlander meet 16 etchings and a text by Dine. The exchange unfolds both on the level of motif and through each artist’s distinct approach to structural subjectivity—Friedlander’s precise observation and Dine’s gestural line. The portfolio Photographs and Etchings (1969) is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven), the British Museum (London), the Städel Museum (Frankfurt), and the Pinakothek der Moderne (Munich).

Press release (German)