A driven man.

Angel Rizzuto lead a troubled life. Despite substantial wealth he spent the last years of his life in a seedy single room apartment in New York, whence, from 1952 through 1966, he emerged daily to record the city and its people. Returning, he would put up the window blind, get out his chemicals and process his pictures. Twelve pictures a day for fifteen years …. he had found his calling.

His legacy consisted of nearly 1,700 contact sheets, some 60,000 images in all, which he left to the Library of Congress along with $50,000. Michael Lesy has done an outstanding job reprising the life of this troubled man and his strange quest for immortality.

It’s hard to know how you decide which one hundred or so pictures to present from a lifetime’s output so huge, but the ones beautifully reproduced here are seldom happy. Troubled people on the street, mostly women, and recurring self portraits of the unsmiling photographer. There are occasional bursts of lyricism like the small girl with her poodle (p. 83) or the painter in Central Park (p. 63) but by and large this collection will make you frown rather than smile.

Imagine living and processing all your pictures in this:

Angel Rizzuto’s home and darkroom.

Simultaneously troubling and inspiring, a great tale of one photographer’s odyssey, this book is highly recommended. A related New York Times article appears here.