Bill Cunningham, the iconic street photographer who chronicled changing fashions over the course of nearly 40 years for the New York Times, has died at the age of 87.
New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham has died
The longtime photographer and star of “Bill Cunningham New York” was 87.
Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
According to the Times, Cunningham recently suffered a stroke and was hospitalized before his passing.
Over his career, he is credited with capturing a candid historical record of New Yorkers’ changing sense of fashion. An acclaimed documentary about Cunningham and his work, “Bill Cunningham New York,” was released in 2011. Here’s the trailer:
The Times’ obituary described Cunningham as a “perennial outsider” who never wanted to turn the camera on himself, preferring to observe society rather than be observed by it:
He didn’t go to the movies. He didn’t own a television. He ate breakfast nearly every day at the Stage Star Deli on West 55th Street, where a cup of coffee and a sausage, egg and cheese could be had until very recently for under $3. He lived until 2010 in a studio above Carnegie Hall amid rows and rows of file cabinets, where he kept all of his negatives. He slept on a single-size cot, showered in a shared bathroom and, when he was asked why he spent years ripping up checks from magazines like Details (which he helped Annie Flanders launch in 1982), said: “Money’s the cheapest thing. Liberty and freedom is the most expensive.”
“Bill Cunningham New York” is currently available to stream on Hulu and Amazon Prime Video.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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