HERMAN LEONARD (1923-2010)

Max Roach, NYC, 1950
gelatin silver print, printed 1991
signed, titled and dated (margin)
image: 17 x 14¼ in. (432 x 362 mm); sheet: 20 x 16 in. (508 x 407 mm); mounted: 24 x 20 in. (610 x 508 mm); housed in a custom green cloth solander box gilt stamped ‘CRW’ to cover.

Hailed by President Bill Clinton as 'The greatest jazz photographer in the history of the genre', Herman Leonard is best known for his intimate portraits of the jazz stars of the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Beginning his career as an apprentice to Yousuf Karsh, his passion for jazz led him to New York’s Greenwich Village where he set up a small studio, working freelance for various magazines and spending his evenings at the swinging clubs of Broadway and Harlem, photographing jazz musicians such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis for the price of admission, and developing friendships with some of the greats, gaining an unprecedented level of access to photograph the musicians at ease backstage. Quincy Jones said of his friend, 'Herman's camera tells the truth and makes it swing. Musicians loved to see him around.' Working with producer Norman Granz, many of his photos ended up on album covers. Despite losing over 8,000 prints in Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he continued to work up to his death in 2010.

[With:] – In Memoriam, 1948-91, the portfolio of 12 halftone prints, published 1992, subjects include: Louis Armstrong, Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Errol Garner, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, Billie Holiday, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Parker, Sarah Vauhan and Lester Young. Signed by the photographer on the colophon and numbered 167 from the edition of 300. Each sheet: 11 x 14 in. (279 x 356 mm), housed in a gilt-stamped burgundy moire silk clamshell case.

[And:] – The Eye of Jazz: The Jazz Photographs of Herman Leonard. London: Viking, 1989. Quarto, original black boards gilt, with dust-jacket. Authorial presentation inscription to Charlie Watts dated Christmas 1994.