„Color is joy. One does not think joy. One is carried by it.” (Ernst Haas)

"Bored with obvious reality, I find my fascination in transforming it into a subjective point of view. Without touching my subject, I want to come to the moment when, through pure concentration of seeing, the composed picture becomes more made than taken. Without a descriptive caption to justify its existence, it will speak for itself - less descriptive, more creative; less informative, more suggestive - less prose, more poetry." (Ernst Haas from About Color Photography, in DU, 1961, via Color Correction.)

Perhaps the most memorable photograph of Albuquerque ever: streets lined with Chevrolets and Fords moving forward from traffic light to traffic light, screaming neon signs illuminating Route 66 on a stormy night, showing America in all its colorful, exciting, and slightly kitschy glory. America as a place of longing for unlimited possibilities is particularly evident in Haas' color photographs. The Austrian moved from Vienna to New York in 1951 and at the same time began to work increasingly with Kodachrome color films. One could interpret it as leaving behind a “black and white” continent scarred by war and turning to color went hand in hand. Images of a magic city or The magic of color are headlines Life magazine chose to herald his sensational and lyrical color photographs of the 1950s. In 1962, the Museum of Modern Art in New York even dedicated a solo exhibition of exclusively color photographs to him, the first photographer to do so.