Herman Leonard

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Herman Leonard (born 1923 in Allentown, Pennsylvania) is an American photographer known for his unique images of jazz icons. Leonard earned a BFA in photography in 1947 from Ohio University, although his college career was interrupted by a tour of duty in the U.S. Army during World War II. In the military he served as a medical technician in Burma, while attached to Chiang Kai Shek's Chinese troops fighting the Japanese.

After graduation, Leonard apprenticed with portraitist Yousuf Karsh for one year. Karsh gave him valuable experience photographing celebrities and public personalities such as Albert Einstein, Harry Truman and Martha Graham.

In 1948 Leonard opened his first studio in New York's Greenwich Village. Working free-lance for various magazines, he spent his evenings at the Royal Roost and then Birdland where he photographed the ongoing roster of jazz musicians such as Dexter Gordon, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and others. The number of shots possible at a time were limited. Using glass negatives at this time, Leonard increased the sensitivity of the plates by exposing them to Mercury vapor.

After working for jazz record producer Norman Granz, who used his work on album sleeves, Leonard was employed in 1956 by Marlon Brando as his personal photographer to document an extensive research trip in the Far East. Following his return, he moved to Paris, photographing assignments in the fashion and advertising business and as European correspondent for Playboy Magazine. Leonard's last flurry of photographing jazz musicians dates from this period. Among the features he shot, one behind the Iron Curtain nearly landed him in a Polish jail.^{[citation needed]}

In 1980, Leonard, with his wife and two children, moved from Paris to the island of Ibiza, where he remained until 1988. He then relocated to New Orleans, immersing himself in the city's lively jazz and blues scene.

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed Leonard's home and studio. The photographer and his family lost much property, including thousands of prints, but his staff, headed by Jenny Bagert, rescued most of his negatives.^[1] Following Hurricane Katrina, Leonard moved to Studio City, California, and re-established his business there, working with music and film companies and magazines.

Leonard's jazz photographs, now collector's items, are a unique record of the jazz scene of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, and his collection is now in the permanent archives of American Musical History in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.