Herman Leonard

Herman Leonard ( born March 6, 1923 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, † August 14 2010 in Los Angeles, California ) was an American photographer, who was known as "The Eye of Jazz" for his outstanding portraits of prominent jazz musicians.

Life

At the age of nine years, Herman Leonard witnessed the withdrawal - making of a photo and fell in his own words the magic of this culture technique. Leonard went to the only college, which was then a course of study and academic degree in photography offered. He earned a 1947 Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Ohio University. However, his college career was interrupted by an invitation to the U.S. Army during the Second World War. In the military, he served in the " 13 Mountain Medical Battalion " as a medical technician and anesthetist in Burma and cooperated closely with the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai -shek, who fought against the Japanese invasion forces.

His parents, Joseph Leonard and Rose Morrison were Romanian immigrants who had emigrated from the third largest Romanian city of Iasi in the United States. After graduating college Leonard went for a year with the portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh apprenticed. Karsh provided him with valuable practical experience and technical refinements, while celebrities such as Albert Einstein, Harry S. Truman and Martha Graham have been portrayed by him.

His first photo studio Leonard opened in 1948 at the address 220 Sullivan Street in New York's Greenwich Village. Self-employed, he worked for various magazines. He spent the evenings frequently in the event local Royal Roost and then Birdland, where he took pictures jazz musicians constantly occurring such as Dexter Gordon, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and more. The number of shots that were technically limited at that time. At that time they still used glass plate negatives. Leonard increased the sensitivity of the plates, calling them -coated with mercury.

The interviewer Marc Myers, he revealed how he got the necessary flash shots without disturbing the musicians on stage strong and upsetting. He placed a flash right next to the headlight of the organizer and a second behind the performers, and he himself solved this sparingly, and when it was absolutely necessary, during the concert from. The lion's share of his live recordings he scored during the warm season and samples of the musicians.

After contract work for the jazz publisher Norman Granz, who used his photos for the album cover, was hired to document an extended research stay in East Asia in 1956 by Leonard Marlon Brando as his personal travel photographer. After his return, he moved to Paris, worked as a contract photographer in the fashion and advertising industries, as well as Europe correspondent of Playboy. Leonard's last series of jazz portraits date from this period.

In 1980, Leonard and his wife Elizabeth and two children, Shana and David, from Paris to the island of Ibiza, where he lived in the episode until 1988, when he finally moved to London. In the British capital, Leonard had his first major retrospective art exhibition. Organised by the "Special Photographers Company" in Notting Hill exhibition was visited by more than ten thousand paying visitors. The show toured the USA in 1989 and Leonard moved shortly after San Francisco. After an exhibition at the " Gallery for Fine Photography " in New Orleans, he fell in love with this city and made it for the next 14 years to his adopted home, dipped it in the vibrant jazz and blues scene of coastal city.

Hurricane Katrina destroyed Leonard's home and studio. The photographer and his family lost much property, including thousands of prints, but his negatives were well protected in the safes of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. After recovering from Hurricane Katrina, Leonard moved to Studio City in Los Angeles in California and built his business there again, took orders from music and film companies and magazines.

In 2006, the then 82- year-old photographer protagonist of the co-produced by the BBC and Sundance documentary Saving jazz that had its loss and to rebuild his life's work on the subject. Two years later, Leonard was the first photographer ever Grammy " Foundation Grant for Preservation and Archiving", which financially enabled him to digitize his nearly 60,000 jazz negatives and catalog.

Leonard's jazz photographs, now became art collectibles, form an important documentation of the jazz scene of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. His work collection is now in the archives of the " American Musical History" at the Smithsonian Museum of Washington, DC. In 2008 his longtime personal friend of Tony Bennett Leonard presented the " Lucie Award Achievement in Portraiture " during a ceremony at Lincoln Center New York City. In June 2009, Leonard was a lecturer in photography - Graduation year at Ohio University, where he also received an honorary doctorate. Was recently announced that he was working on a collaborative project with the musician and producer Lenny Kravitz in January 2010.

The 87 -year-old died on August 14 at Cedars - Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Many obituaries worldwide underlined his artistic reputation and recognition throughout the Western cultural world for these pioneers of jazz photography.

Awards

• 2009 Honorary Doctorate in Photography from Ohio University
• 2009 Bruce Lundvall Award nomination as "official photographer" of the Montreal Jazz Festival
• 2008 Lucie Award from the category " Achievement in Portraiture " of the Lucie Foundation, New York City
• 2004 " Lifetime Achievement Award" by the magazine Down Beat
• 2000 Excellence in Photography Award from the U.S. Jazz Journalists Association
• 1999 Milt Hinton Award for Excellence in Jazz Photography of the American Jazz Photographer's Association
• 1995 Honorary Master of Science in Photography from The Brooks Institute of Photography

Reception

Two documentaries in the 1990s emphasized the appreciation of his life's work as a historical jazz image designer. Philippe Koechlin created in 1995 for " Program 33 " and Canal Plus a recent documentary on Lady Day Billie Holliday, which was based on Leonard's historic recordings. Two years later, the Louisiana Public Broadcasting Company published a documentary frame after frame in which Tony Bennett described as moderator Herman Leonard's work history.

With the band The Jazz Image: Seeing Music through Herman Leonard 's Photography, published in 2010 by the University Press of Mississippi, there is a first scientific work on Leonard's life's work. Announced is the appearance of the band jazz of the publishers Grove Atlantic (UK) and Bloomsbury (USA) in November 2010, make it generally available Leonards photographic work including many not previously published recordings.

Leonard's work is represented in prestigious public collections, including the " Jazz at Lincoln Center " New York City, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, and the George Eastman House, New York City.

" Herman is my favorite artist of any technique, he's a painter with his camera, and he makes it look so effortless. His timing is as great as any Charlie Parker solo or Lester Young or Count Basie beat. Herman's work will live on and in 50 years from now, when the revolution is Realized, jazz will be Recognized for the truly great American art form it is. "- Tony Bennett

Photo Band Works (selection)

• Jazz Memories. Levallois- Perret. Editions Filipacchi, 1995 ( text in English and French ) ISBN 2-85018-247-8
• The Eye of Jazz. London: Viking, 1989 ISBN 0-670-82771-1.