Iconic Images of Jazz Legends at the National Portrait Gallery
Recording evocative images that captured the very essence of a live jazz performance, Herman Leonard (1923–2010) photographed many of the 20th century’s greatest jazz artists. The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery will feature Leonard’s iconic images—created with his bulky Speed Graphic camera—of musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk and Sarah Vaughan in the exhibition “In the Groove: Jazz Portraits by Herman Leonard” running Aug. 5 through Feb. 20, 2017. The press preview will be held Aug. 2 from 10 to 11:30 a.m.
The 28 photographs in this exhibition were selected from a limited-edition, 30-print portfolio by Leonard that is part of the National Portrait Gallery’s collection. Leonard created the portfolio in 1998 to showcase some of his most iconic jazz portraits so, in this sense, the exhibition reflects Leonard’s curatorial choices. The exhibition shows images created from 1948 to 1960 and includes portraits of jazz vocalists as well as instrumentalists. They represent a range of jazz styles from Dixieland and swing to bebop and cool jazz.
“Thanks to these remarkable photographs, we have front-row seats to a golden era in American jazz,” said Ann Shumard, senior curator of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery and exhibition curator. “They transport us to the intimate, smoke-filled nightspots where Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker and Buddy Rich performed groundbreaking music.”
Leonard began his career as an apprentice to renowned portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh. Building on the lessons learned as a darkroom assistant and the knowledge gleaned from accompanying Karsh to portrait sessions with famous sitters such as Albert Einstein and Martha Graham, Leonard launched his first studio in New York City’s Greenwich Village in 1948. His infatuation with jazz led him to clubs and performance venues all over the city, where he captured memorable images that soon made their way to album covers and the pages of DownBeat and Metronome magazines. In 2008, Leonard received the Lucie Award in recognition of his achievement in portraiture.
The New York chapter of Leonard’s career came to a close in 1956 when he moved to Paris. In the years that followed, he built a successful career as a commercial photographer, specializing in editorial work and advertising. Leonard did not revisit his jazz negatives until the 1980s, when the publication of a book of his portraits The Eye of Jazz introduced a new generation to his iconic photographs of the legends of jazz.
“In the Groove: Jazz Portraits by Herman Leonard” is made possible by a grant from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee. This exhibition is presented in celebration of the 2016 grand opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
National Portrait Gallery
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery tells the multifaceted story of America through the individuals who have shaped its culture. Through the visual arts, performing arts and new media, the Portrait Gallery portrays poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives tell the American story.
The National Portrait Gallery is part of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture at Eighth and F streets N.W., Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Information: (202) 633-1000. Website: npg.si.edu. Connect with the museum at Facebook; Instagram; blog; Twitter y YouTube.
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SI-337-2016
Bethany Bentley
202-633-8293
