Died "peacefully" Saturday evening, William Klein revolutionized photography with his punchy images reflecting the feverishness and violence of cities, during a long career also devoted to fashion and cinema.
"In accordance with his wishes, the funeral will take place in the strictest privacy," said his son, Pierre Klein, in a press release, indicating that a public tribute would be paid to him later.
"For a few years, William had suffered from the hassles and complications linked to old age which attack the body, mobility, without winning over the mind which, at home, almost to the end, remained lucid", underlined de his side Alain Genestar, the director of the specialized magazine and the Polka gallery, in an online editorial.
"Despite the exhaustion that won him, he died in command", continues the former editorial director of Paris Match, about the one he describes as "dancer and boxer of photography".
Photographer but also painter, documentary filmmaker and graphic designer, William Klein is considered one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
"Chaos Artist"
He died at the end of a retrospective exhibition of his work at the International Center of Photography in New York, which paid tribute to him.
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"He was a visionary from all points of view, who ignored the social and artistic codes of his time to carve out a singular path both in his commercial work and in his personal projects, and in all media", writes the museum on its site.
"Innovative and uncompromising, he opened countless doors for image-makers around the world."
Similarly, the European House of Photography (MEP) deplored on Twitter the disappearance of one of the "founding names" of its collection, "reference for many artists".
The Academy of Fine Arts, which created a prize in his name in 2019, also wanted to honor a man whose work "marked the history of photography".
Born on April 19, 1926 in New York into an Orthodox Jewish family, the young American had discovered Europe while doing his military service.
Demobilized in Paris in 1946, William Klein then devoted himself to painting, after having studied with Fernand Léger.
He lived in France since his meeting with his future wife Jeanne Florin, model and painter, with whom he shared his life until his death in 2005.
The one who won his first camera in poker before hitting the eye of Vogue also has several feature films to his credit, including "Who are you, Polly Maggoo?"
(1966), and over 250 commercials.
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"His field of creation was vast and multiple", with the only motto "No rules, no limits" ("no rules, no limits"), summarizes Alain Genestar, who calls him "the artist of chaos".
"He didn't care about the settings, locking the speed of his Leica at 125, shooting without asking permission, and leaving the studios for the street, the squares, the sidewalks, the pedestrian crossings, the café terraces".
© 2022 AFP