Artworks

Saul Leiter’s paintings have an unmistakable beauty. They burst with colour – yellows, turquoises, violets, reds. If you give them a few moments they will draw you in. Saul will tell you how much he enjoys the act of painting, how unlike some artists he doesn’t suffer when he paints – far from it. He is openly seeking a particular kind of beauty, and the enjoyment in the process is as obvious as it is in his photography. But you should be able to see this. No one should have to tell you. It is in his use of colour, the variety of marks, and in his sheer exuberance in painting that this emerges. The temptation is to try and explain it all in terms of something else that it isn’t, something more complicated or more personal. There may seem to be a horizon, and a sense of landscape or cityscape in many of these – though perhaps not. Everything in his painting is what it is.

(Excerpt from text by Nigel Warburton, from an interview with Saul Leiter 2013)