Leonard Freed (October 23, 1929 – November 29, 2006.Born in Brooklyn, New York, to working­classJewish parents of Eastern European descent, Leonard Freed first wanted to become a painter. However, hebegan taking photographs while in the Netherlands in 1953, and discovered that this was where his passionlay. In 1954, after trips through Europe and North Africa, he returned to the United States and studied inAlexei Brodovitch's 'design laboratory'. He moved to Amsterdam in 1958 and photographed the Jewish

community there. He pursued this concern in numerous books and films, examining German society andhis own Jewish roots; his book on the Jews in Germany was published in 1961, and Made in Germany,

about post­war Germany, appeared in 1965. Working as a freelance photographer from 1961 onwards, Freedbegan to travel widely, photographing blacks in America (1964­65), events in Israel (1967­68), the YomKippur War in 1973, and the New York City police department (1972­79). He also shot four films for

Japanese, Dutch and Belgian television.Early in Freed's career, Edward Steichen, then Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art,bought three of his photographs for the museum. Steichen told Freed that he was one of the three bestyoung photographers he had seen and urged him to remain an amateur, as the other two were now doingcommercial photography and their work had become uninteresting. 'Preferably,' he advised, 'be a truck

driver.'Freed joined Magnum in 1972. His coverage of the American civil rights movement first made him famous,but he also produced major essays on Poland, Asian immigration in England, North Sea oil development,and Spain after Franco. Photography became Freed's means of exploring societal violence and racial

discrimination.Leonard Freed died in Garrison, New York, on 30 November 2006.

Publications

1958 Joden van Amsterdam, De Bezige Bij, Netherlands

1965 Deutsche Juden Heute, Rütten & Loening Verlag, Germany

1967 Black in White America, Grossman Publishers, USA

1970 Made in Germany, Grossman Publishers, USA

1970 Seltsame Spiele, Verlag Bärmeier & Nikel, Germany

1971 Leonard Freed’s Germany, Thames & Hudson, UK

1977 Berlin, Time­Life Books, New York, USA

1980 Police Work, Simon & Schuster, USA

1984 La Danse des Fidèles, Editions du Chêne, France

1990 New York Police (Photo Notes), Centre National de la Photographie, France

1991 Leonard Freed: Photographs 1954­1990, Cornerhouse, UK/Editions Nathan,

1997 Amsterdam: The Sixties, Focus Publishing, USA

2004 Another Life, ABP Public Affairs, Netherlands

2007 Leonard Freed: Worldview, Steidl, Germany

2009 Indonesiers in Holland, d'Jonge hond, Netherlands

Films

1993 Joey Goes to Wigstock (color,10')

Awards

New York State Grant for the Arts, 1978

National Endowment for the Arts, 1980