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# William Klein, Simone + Nina, Piazza di Spagna, Rome, 1960
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/fotografiia-uiliama-kliaina-simona-nina-ploshchad-ispanii-rim-sdelannaia-v-1960-godu-odin-iz-obraztsov-novatorskogo-stilia-amerikanskogo-fotografa-uiliama-kliaina/
- Published: 2024-07-11T09:31:54.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T10:07:40.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Cinema, People, Rome

William Klein's photograph "Simone + Nina, Piazza di Spagna, Rome", taken in 1960, is one of the finest examples of the innovative style of the American photographer William Klein. Klein was drawn to street photography and sought to take fashion photography out of the studio. Here he plays with the rhythmic, contrasting lines of a zebra crossing. The frame shows an ordinary city scene: people crossing the road near the bustling Piazza di Spagna, a Vespa as the emblematic fixture of Italian streets, and the elegant silhouettes of Nina and Simone. The whole even gives the impression of cinema, and not by chance, for Klein was also a film director.

He was born in New York and educated at the City College of New York, but worked mainly in France, where he made, among other things, several feature films, for example Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo (1966) and the anti-American satire "Mr. Freedom".

He first visited Paris after the Second World War, in 1947, while serving in the army. Klein fell in love with Paris and stayed there to live and work. In 1948 he enrolled at the Sorbonne, where, among others, he studied under Fernand Léger. His best-known works are devoted to fashion and to street photography, of which he is considered one of the creators and masters.