LEN SPEIER

New York City

b. 1927

Len Speier was born the very year Disney created Mickey Mouse and Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis to land safely at Le Bourget Airport, Paris. Attended public schools, including CCNY Served in the 1st Cavalry Division on Occupation Duty in Japan as one of the last draftees at the very end of WW II. His was an undistinguished record in that he never had to point a gun at the enemy (in fact, he developed a liking for the Japanese, their art and culture) and no one shot at him. A great advantage on both sides.
Returned to the US, resumed his studies at City College, wisely avoided using his precious GI Bill of Rights (City College was quite free for students with good grades). Attended New York University Law School, was a Notes Editor of its Law Review, was awarded a Summer Associate post with the Wall Street firm of Holtzman, Wise Shephard and Kelly. Left after one year, did not like high end corporate morality - and they did not offer him a position! Became a commercial trial lawyert for almost 15 years, when the photography bug bug rose up and bit him!

In the late Sixties he, joined the Photo Workshop under the tutelage of Dr. Al Freed, Photo Director in the Educational Alliance, Lower East Side. There he became exposed to Street Photography and while he did many other things, working the streets never left him.

His mentor at the Alliance urged him to teach photography. His legal experience as a trial lawyer gave him the needed poise and gift of gab. He taught at various institutions, including the New School and the Art Department at NYU and finally, teamed up with Irving Schild, then Chair of Photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC. There he stayed for over 16 years until his retirement in 2006 after a serious bout with cancer, followed, three years later by a stroke. He doggedly survived both events and returned to teach in a wheel chair.
His work is in the permanent collections of The Biblioteque Nationale, Paris; International Center of Photography; Museum of the City of New York; Eerie Museum of Art, Eerie, PA; Photo Archive of New York Public Library.
He still photographs to this day, exhibits, and is working on his “Bus Series” and trying to complete a labor of love, a photo book on Club Dancing in the Seventies & Eighties and is hoping to interest a good publisher before it gets to be a “Posthumous Work” ~Len Speier