Leonard Freed’s Police Work is a series of over 100 photographs born out of a commission from the London Sunday Times in 1972 to photograph the New York City Police Department. After the article used the images to paint what he felt was too dark a picture of the city and its law enforcement, Freed resumed the project and, for the next ten years, accompanied the NYPD on drug busts, murder investigations and community outreach initiatives to offer a more comprehensive view of the individuals and organization tasked with protecting the city and its inhabitants. Just as we see in Black In White America (lot 102), his photographs of black communities throughout the country during the civil rights movement, Freed’s poignant images reveal the nuances and complexities of our racial and cultural history, resonating all the more in today’s social climate.

This lot is accompanied by a signed copy of Leonard Freed's book Police Work, published 1980.