William Klein: 'I was an outsider, following my instincts'

William Klein: 'I was an outsider, following my instincts' Instead, he has always been an artist who follows his instincts, whatever the costs. " Did you fall out? "No. As he was cycling around, "trying to find all these places I'd read about in books", he saw a woman who literally stopped him in his tracks. "Everything I did, I did for her," he told a recent interviewer. Despite his street-tough exterior, a residue of childhood as a Jewish boy marooned in a tough Irish neighbourhood in Brooklyn, he is, at heart, a romantic, something his long self-exile has deepened. " This, you suspect, is the real story of William Klein's life: work as fun, with a little bit of confrontation thrown in. He returned to photography in the 80s, when he was finally recognised as a pioneer - his early books influencing generations of photographers in Europe, America and especially Japan. His wife, Jeanne Florin, died in 2005. "She was the most beautiful girl I ever saw," he says, his eyes lighting up, "I just had to go over and chat her up. It was a crazy scene, but I had fun. That's what I've been doing ever since. I put it to him that the film should really have been called In Search of Little Richard. "Yeah, he disappeared on us. ' The thing is, without that stuff, there was no Little Richard. She was all smiles, so I asked her out. Alongside his Tate Modern show in October, his London gallery, HackelBury, will host an exhibition of his art, William Klein: Paintings Etc. "So, who knows, I might surprise people all over again. The photographer and film-maker - one of the fantastic postwar iconoclasts - has three exhibitions opening in the UK this year . "Somebody turned one of the panels when I was shooting on a long exposure, and when I developed the pictures this already abstract shape was a beautiful blur. Through photography, you can really talk about what you see around you. They said: 'We're gonna organise your big comeback, but no crazy hairdos and no wild costumes. "He told us not to worry about galleries and collectors, but to go out onto the city streets and paint murals. "It's a lot of stuff that no one has seen before," he says. William Klein: 'I was an outsider, following my instincts' Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 29/04/2012