William Klein, an American expatriate photographer whose often frenetic and sometimes blurred images of urban street life and modern fashion were wildly innovative while conveying the pointed social criticism of a self-declared outsider, has died aged 96.
From his earliest years, Klein said, he was attuned to seeing the world as a perpetual foreigner. He grew up in Depression-era Manhattan, a Jewish boy in a largely Irish neighbourhood, where he endured poverty and antisemitic bullying. Self-reliance and a quick eye for his surroundings were his means of survival – and so was art. At 12, he began spending weekends roaming the Museum of Modern Art, where his own work would one day be displayed.
