Lee Friedlander: Maria presents a seven-decade portrait of the artist’s wife, in photographs made between the 1950s and the 2020s. Accompanying the exhibition is a new hardcover book published by Fraenkel Gallery, tracing Friedlander’s inimitable style through more than 70 tender and surprising photographs. In the book, Jeffrey Fraenkel talks with Maria Friedlander about her experience as a partner and subject, and the challenges and triumphs of building a life with an artist. Highlights from the interview are below.
Jeffrey Fraenkel: So just to start, can you give us a little introduction about how you and Lee met?
Maria Friedlander: I was working as an assistant at Sports Illustrated magazine, and photographers would come and go. I met Garry [Winogrand] and others. And one day Lee came in and was looking for my boss, but he wasn’t around. So I said, You could wait or you could come back another time. So he sat and waited—he had pictures to show—and we chatted and talked, and then he left. And that weekend I got a call from Lee asking me to go with him to [the New York jazz club] Birdland to hear Count Basie. And I went and—it never stopped.
JF: You said a lot of photographers came in. When Lee came in, was there a little electricity between you, would you say?
MF: I looked at him and I liked his height and he wore nice clothes [laughter]—a nice jacket—and he was cute.
JF: When you and Lee married, what sort of role did you think photography would play in the relationship? Did you think Lee would be able to support you and the family with his photography?
MF: Yes. I thought he would go out on assignments, which is primarily what I saw him doing. You know, he’d get a call, “Go shoot this or shoot that”—a rodeo or a football game. You know… we were careful with funds. And I thought that care, and the fact that Lee always worked, would see us through. I had no idea what would happen.
JF: Did he strike you as just a hard worker or as a better-than-average photographer? Did you think he was any different from most of the photographers at the time?
MF: At the time, I wasn’t sure about his photography, except that people kept saying he was a man of talent…
JF: So there was no conception then of Lee making prints that people would ever want to buy?
MF: He made prints that suited him that he put aside, but not to sell. There was no reason to think they would sell.
JF: Photography at the time was basically for magazines and the printed page.
MF: I would say so, except that every once in a while you’d hear Walker Evans come into the office and say, “This is damn good.”
JF: When Lee went to the darkroom and made new pictures, did he often call you to come downstairs and say “These are my new ones”?
MF: Yes, occasionally he would do that, or I would ask to see them. It still goes on. And I would say “I’m not as fond of this,” or, “Why are you using that?”
JF: So he’d be interested in your opinion of the pictures?
MF: Up to a point. It was his opinion, his work, what he felt about it. I mean, often he would say to me, “Oh really—? I like it a lot,” and that was the end. But that’s okay.
JF: Would he ever ask the opinion of someone else, a friend?
MF: No, I don’t think it would matter.
JF: What has [Lee’s] relationship been to the darkroom—you said, a haven?
MF: He goes down there, he prints, he develops film—he’s always there. He’s one of the few black-and-white photographers who does his own printing. He wouldn’t dare let anybody do it.
JF: Lee takes pictures of everything around him; he’s rarely without his camera. Was it always like that?
MF: Yes, he always has it because it may come in handy. Somebody said to me one time, many years ago, “Lee could go somewhere and lose you, Maria, but he would never lose his camera” [laughs]. It’s okay! I understood that. He was always photographing.
JF: Was it different when you went on holiday?
MF: No holiday—he kept working [laughter].
JF: No holiday from photography ever?
MF: No, no. He was always shooting. I often felt maybe he should enjoy it more, but that was his way of enjoying.
JF: [In the 1980s] you’re together for twenty, thirty years at that point, he’s making these pictures—did you like the work? Were you enthusiastic about it?
MF: Oh yes, I liked it. I didn’t like every picture and every body of work, but I thought he had something going. And I admired his work ethic.
JF: Is there any advice you’d give to a spouse or the children of an artist? Because when we started, we talked about how living with an artist is different.
MF: It’s different, it’s different. Well, I would say, have something of your very own to pursue. It could be children, it could be writing for the local newspaper, it could be working at school—all of those things I did, and they were happy days…. But I think having something of your very own, or several things of your very own, are necessary. And also I think you have to develop a sense of, Who is this man, and what is he doing, and what do you make of it? It was easy for me in that respect.
