Description:

Herman Leonard
American, 1923-2010, active New Orleans, 1992-2005
"Billie Holiday, NYC, 1949"
gelatin silver print
negative creation date 1949, later print, signed, titled and dated lower margin, inscribed
"BLH03 12559" and "HL-24552" en verso, unframed.

Note: "Billie Holiday, NYC, 1949" presents "Lady Day" early in the post-war peak of jazz in New York where Herman Leonard had just one year earlier established his first photography studio in Greenwich Village. Reciprocating photographs in exchange for entry to a growing scene of jazz clubs, Leonard's lens helped define how some of the century's greatest performers were known and eventually mythologized. His photographs would be employed as covers on some 200-plus albums. This photograph graces the cover of Jazz, Giants and Journeys: The Photography of Herman Leonard, the monograph for his exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2006, a year after Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed his archives. Billie Holiday (1915-1959) sang about the human experience from love to profound injustice. In this photograph, Holiday's smooth countenance and dramatic zigzags of smoke plumes are captured by Leonard's quick eye in a dynamic layout. The silent soundtrack to this iconic photograph comes through in compelling shadow and gesture; Leonard captures the singer as storyteller, poised to finish the tale.

  • Dimensions: Sheet: 14 x 11 in. (35.6 x 27.9 cm.)
  • Medium: gelatin silver print
  • Condition: No signs of past restoration; very light waffling.

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October 23, 2025 11:00 AM CDT
New Orleans, LA, US

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