Four pigment prints, each is 9 x 6 inches (22.9 x 15.2 cm); paper size is 10 x 8 inches (25.4 x 20.3 cm). Printed 2012.

Klein was born in 1933 in Brooklyn, New York. He earned a B.A. and M.A. in English from Queens College and the University of Chicago, respectively, and pursued a Ph.D., also in English, from the University of Minnesota. Almost immediately upon ceasing his studies in 1960, Irwin decided to become a photographer. The rich expressions of life and its social context found in his work captured the attention of the art photography world, and his images quickly began to appear in a number of prominent publications, including Modern Photography; Aperture; Popular Photography; and American Photography, a publication of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).

In addition to print, Klein’s work also appeared in numerous important exhibitions, including the Eastman House exhibit “An International Survey of Contemporary Photographers by Nathan Lyon” in 1969, and posthumously in John Szarkowski’s 1978 MOMA show entitled, “Mirrors and Windows: American Photography Since 1960.” In a review of the show, Time Magazine particularly noted the “exquisitely formal-looking image of a fire in Minneapolis by Irwin B. Klein.

Taken in the last weeks of his life as he walked along the streets near his home, these color images are reproduced here for the first time.

For the viewer, the photographs offer a disturbing glimpse into the Brooklyn neighborhoods in which Irwin spent the last few years of his life. Graffiti-riddled buildings, debris-strewn streets, and shuttered doors and windows provide a backdrop of seemingly inescapable poverty against which he captures the images of local residents.