Image: Kagoshima City Museum of Art
Kagoshima City Museum of Art will present a special exhibition titled 'Origins in Color' from October 2 to November 15, 2026, bringing together photographs, paintings and slides by Saul Leiter. The museum’s announcement positions the show as a wide look at the work of the New York-based photographer, whose color images helped reshape perceptions of photography at a time when black-and-white work still dominated its artistic reputation.
Leiter, who was born in 1923 and died in 2013, moved from Pittsburgh to New York in 1946 after initially aspiring to be a painter. According to the museum, he later became known as a pioneer of color photography by pursuing artistic expression in a medium that had long been regarded as commercial rather than fine art. The exhibition is framed around that central idea, tracing the development of his visual language from early work through his later decades.
The museum says the exhibition will be organized into four sections. 'Part 1 New York 1950’s' will feature early monochrome photographs, including previously unseen snapshots from around the 1950s and portraits of younger Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and John Cage. 'Part 2 Saul Leiter and Fashion' will focus on the fashion work he began after being commissioned for 'Harper’s Bazaar' in 1958, and which continued to bring him attention through the 1980s.
'Part 3 The Source of Color: Painter Saul Leiter' will set his paintings alongside his photographs, reflecting the fact that he kept painting throughout his life even after finding recognition as a photographer. 'Part 4 Into the World of Color' will use projector-based presentations to recreate the way Leiter saw his images in slide form, since color printing was technically complex and expensive and he often viewed his photographs as slides for many years.
The museum also plans to display works from later in Leiter’s career, including color slides discovered after his death, as part of its effort to examine the source of his color sensibility. The exhibition text notes that the publication of his first photo book, 'Early Color', in 2006 helped prompt renewed attention to color photography, followed by a major retrospective in 2008 and a documentary film in 2012. The museum refers to Leiter as a legendary photographer born in New York’s postwar image culture and widely celebrated in Japan as well.
'Origins in Color' will be shown in the museum’s general exhibition rooms and special exhibition room. Opening hours are 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., with last admission at 5:30 p.m. The venue is closed on October 5, 13, 19 and 26, and November 2. Admission is 1,400 yen for adults, 1,000 yen for university and high school students, and 800 yen for elementary and junior high school students, with advance and group rates also listed by the museum.
Related programming includes workshops on developing and printing photographs in a darkroom, curator talks, a screening of the film 'Saul Leiter: The Life of Color', and a hotel collaboration offering afternoon tea inspired by Leiter’s color work. The exhibition is co-organized by Kagoshima City Museum of Art, Minaminihon Shimbun and KTS Kagoshima Television, with cooperation from the Saul Leiter Foundation.
