Photography of Herman Leonard
'The most complete survey of his lifetime of photography.' – The Guardian.
With a camera as his backstage pass, Herman Leonard photographed the giants of jazz in their golden age, movie stars on set and on their travels to exotic places, the fashion world of Paris in the 1960s, and the inner sanctums of his beloved New Orleans.
This exquisite book, published in a new edition with a beautiful updated cover, is the only full treatment of this extraordinary life and distinctive body of work and gives Leonard’s photographs the artistic recognition that they deserve. The greater part of the book consists of his legendary shots of musicians, but uniquely among volumes on Herman Leonard it presents the whole range of his work, including travel, war, celebrity, fashion, and nude photography, while there are also chapters on the images of his early and late periods. It includes rare portraits of the cultural icons of his day, such as Marilyn Monroe on an elephant in the circus, and Albert Einstein at his desk. He was a superb portrait photographer, having learned as a young apprentice to the great Yousuf Karsh of Ottawa.
Above all, he is best known for his jazz images. In a fascinating essay, David Houston reveals how Leonard's friendships with jazz greats such as Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington allowed him to capture the magical moments of the Harlem and Paris jazz clubs in the 1940s and 50s, using his unique command of cinematic lighting to capture their essence as performers. As Quincy Jones writes in the Foreword, 'When people think of jazz, their mental picture is likely one of Herman's.'