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The new edition of Elliott Erwitt’s Kolor presents a vibrant selection of the legendary photographer’s color work, curated from nearly half a million Kodachrome slides. Spanning over 70 years, all 304 pages are infused with Erwitt’s signature wit and sensitivity.
This piece is an abridged version of the introduction of the book 'Elliott Erwitt's Kolor', written by Sean Callahan.
About twenty years ago Elliott Erwitt half retired. He reined in what he calls “assignment photography”—magazine photojournalism, corporate image making, and advertising—to devote his energies full time to what he calls his “hobby,” the personal pictures that long time Museum of Modern Art photography department director John Szarkowski called “unmemorable occasions [where] Erwitt has distilled with wit and clarity and grace, the indecisive moment.”
In the years since, museum exhibits, gallery shows, and monographs have secured his place as one of the most important photographic artists of the age. These hobby photos, however, always made in black and white, have obscured a body of work, largely in color, that was the output of his professional life and has, until now, been in an archive waiting for Erwitt to get around to producing this book.
These are Erwitt’s professional photographs, for the most part made to support his hobby of amateur photography that he had little hope would provide a living for himself and his family. Since they were all made by the same person, but in service to different patrons, careful examination of many will reveal the same craft, intelligence, and insight.
Erwitt’s bifurcated life as a photographer needs some explaining. When the photojournalism he was doing for magazines started to become editorial illustration, he recognized it for what it was. “I figured if what I was doing amounted to advertising I might as well get paid advertising rates, so I eased out of editorial and took up advertising with a vengeance,” he says. “Assignment photography requires a certain logic that I find appealing. Like, how can I satisfy the client and still get something out of this for myself.”
Erwitt is a photographer of an era when color film was not a suitable medium for artistic expression. Few photographers then worked in color, which was a challenge to control technically as well as aesthetically and, from the perspective of the art business (collectors, curators, and gallerists), color prints were unstable. They were subject to fading and not something that accrued value hanging on the wall but just the opposite. Time and technology have changed that of course.
Although color is the currency of commercial photography, Erwitt will deny that his choice of black and white for his fine art work had anything to do with market considerations. “Color,” he says, “is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive.”
Which brings us back to seeing the essence of Erwitt in both kinds of work. Notoriously succinct and given to few pronouncements about his photography, Erwitt sits firmly in the camp that says “my pictures speak for themselves.” This is very apparent in his artwork which is often wry, ironic, and existential.
Finding Erwitt’s signature in his assignment photography is more difficult. These pictures, which are not theatric but more rooted in his years as a documentary photographer are more of a challenge to the viewer because, in the context of this book, they are shorn of the captions of photojournalism or the advertising copy that gives the photographs the necessary context to fully appreciate their originality. There are stories behind most of the commercial photographs in this book, but you can try and heed Erwitt’s admonition to let them speak for themselves.
—Sean Callahan, 2013
Explore the new edition of Elliott Erwitt's Kolor.
'The current state of prefabrication and modularity holds enormous potential if fully realized alongside thoughtful, integrated design,' says José Tomás Franco, the introduction writer of our book, 'Prefab and Modular'.
