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Leica Gallery London

2024
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Smithfield Market, London 2017
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Parliament Square/Big Ben, London 2017
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Lime Street Leaden Hall, London 2017
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Parliament Square/Big Ben, London 2017
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St Paul's Cathedral/Peters Hill, London 2017
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The Blackfriars Pub, London 2017
22 February 2024 - 3 March 2024

Horst Hamann: London Vertical

"Mr. Hamann is a genius at composition, not only in his framing of architectural forms but in his treatment of light as well.” - Herbert Muschamp, The New York Times

German photographer Horst Hamann, who is recognised as the pioneer of vertical urban photography, began his photographic Vertical Views of Cities in 1991. 

The initial experimental shots have developed into an unmistakable and individual take on the modern acropolis with his depictions of Vertical Paris and Vertical New York already noted as award-winning sell-out publications. Hamann’s compositional confidence together with the courage to experiment artistically has allowed him to achieve a recognisable imprint of these iconic cities despite his brave vertiginous take. 

For the past seven years, he has focused on London, a city very dear to his heart. As with New York and Paris he has managed to find completely new architectural perspectives assuring us that ‘You will never see the city the same way again’, serving up majestic views and fine historical detail via dramatic black and white images.

Born in Mannheim, Germany in 1958 Hamann has spent half of his life in New York and the State of Maine. His photographic journey has taken him around the world with his extensive body of work feeding over 50 publications and numerous exhibitions. 

His work is held in private and international art collections. He is also the first living German photographer to be honoured by The Museum of The City of New York with a six-month solo exhibition. 

All images in the exhibition are shot on the Leica Q2. All prints are for sale together with the new book London Vertical published by teNeues.

2023

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A group of young people partying at home
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A young man with his grandmother at home at their table
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A person laying in snow
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Teenagers sitting at a road
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A couple standing in front of a restaurant
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Two young adults laying on the couch
16 December 2023 - 22 January 2024

Valentin Goppel: Between the Years

Leica Gallery London is exhibiting work by Valentin Goppel, winner of the prestigious Leica Oskar Barnack Newcomer Award for photography in 2022. The works on display are from Goppel’s series, Between the Years, a tender perspective on young adults living 'through' the time of Corona. 

This up-close-and-personal project, which later became part of a much bigger commission at the request of the German newspaper Die Zeit, documents how for Goppel, along with many of his friends, the initial euphoria surrounding Covid was replaced by disorientation, isolation, and uncertainty. Through both staged and observed imagery, Goppel strives to relay the emotions experienced during this strange time. Ironically, for the photographer the pursuit of image led him briefly out of his own isolation.

"Many of the people I photographed were the friends I had been missing for months. It was not difficult to explain to them what pictures I was looking for, we were all in the middle of it and knew how the other was feeling. It is strange how similar things have been for us in recent months - yet we all felt so alone."

Perhaps the biggest revelation in the project for Goppel was realising that Covid, rather than causing this seeping insecurity and anxiety, was perhaps just a catalyst for what was already there: the unsettling feelings which are part of growing up and transitioning from a child to an adult, he was still a teenager when he began the shooting the series. 

"The camera was my personal tool in processing the weight of our disorientation."

This is the first time Goppel’s work has been exhibited in the UK. All works in the exhibition are for sale, please contact gallery.london@leica-camera.com.

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22 November - 8 December 2023

Emily Garthwaite: Tears of the Tigris

Leica Gallery London is exhibiting Tears of the Tigris; photographs from award-winning photojournalist and Leica Ambassador, Emily Garthwaite. The work documents Garthwaite’s exceptional journey through Iraq with writer Leon McCarron, walking the Zagros Mountain Trail and twice travelling down the Tigris River through Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Garthwaite’s photography, which focuses on environmental and humanitarian stories, sheds light on a completely unique perspective of these regions, weaving together themes of shared humanity, displacement, and coexistence within the natural world.

"Our quest was for the enduring aspects of the river - the culture and heritage that have survived for millennia. We experienced the beauty and depth of history but also saw the impact of past decades of conflict and the environmental and geopolitical threats that have left the birthplace of civilisation at risk of becoming uninhabitable to the 30 million people living in the Tigris watershed. In 2023, I returned to follow the river through Iraq in search of the Garden of Eden and to return to the communities who welcomed me into their lives"

The works in the exhibition are taken between 2020 - 2023 and encompass both journeys taken down the Tigris by the photographer.

Garthwaite has exhibited and published her work internationally including The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, Washington Post, Der Spiegel, Le Figaro, and GEO among others.

Please contact our gallery for more information on the works, all photographs in the exhibition are for sale.

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3 November - 19 November 2023

Amy Currell: ‘aurora’

Leica Gallery London presents the inaugural solo exhibition of Emerging Ambassador Amy Currell, with her series ‘aurora’ in which she weaves together the timeless beauty of flowers with the celestial colours of the aurora borealis. These large format photographs, created in Amy’s signature blend of mesmerising hues, pull you into a contemporary world of colour and singular detail. The show draws inspiration from classical floral subjects of the 17th century Dutch masters bringing a gentle sense of romanticism and softness. The work immediately invites the viewer to immerse themselves within the vibrancy of the image and offers a fleeting chance to retreat from the outside world. 

Alongside ‘aurora’, the gallery will show a satellite documentary project ‘pieces in my pocket’, in which intimate photographs record personal trinkets and collectibles given to the artist by her children for safe keeping. Each collection is a window into their worlds, a visual reflection of their unique personalities and interests. The images are individually titled with name and age, providing a recorded time stamp and testament to the innocence of childhood. 

Photographer and Director Amy Currell was born in 1987 in East London, where she still lives and works. Her still-life photography and moving image is shot through a distinctively female lens. Currell’s distinctive aesthetic comes from creatively weaving together stills photography, CGI, animation and moving image to bring her visuals to life. Evocative and arresting, her images and films have an instinctive understanding of colour, form and beauty. Currell's vision and the sublime beauty of her work has won her campaigns with the world's most creative and luxurious brands such as Loewe, Jones Road, Byredo and House of Creed amongst others. 

All 13 works in this exhibition are shot on the Leica S3 camera with Leica S-Lenses. The exhibition is sponsored by SIMLAB who have provided the exhibition prints. All works are for sale and will be uniquely available through the Leica Gallery London, prices start at £1,500 plus VAT.

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14 September - 29 October 2023

Charlie Gray: Performance

Leica Gallery London is delighted to announce Charlie Gray’s inaugural exhibition, showcasing 12 epic portraits illustrating the stories of actors, artists, great entertainers and rock music royalty. The exhibition highlights work that contains his signature narrative style, which was partially born from his early love of cinema.

Gray’s work for industry giants, such as BAFTA, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, EON Productions, Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, focuses on portraiture, fashion and candid behind the scenes moments of beloved stars from film and theatre.

Gray began photographing whilst at university, becoming involved in various documentary projects. He acknowledges these formative years as a true learning curve in terms of technical and people skills, which later became invaluable to his photographic career. This was also a time where he digested photography books, specifically the work of Martin Parr and Don McCullin among others. His first commercial assignment was for BAFTA, enabling him to encounter incredible people from the film studios and entertainment industry, leading to portrait commissions and blue-chip magazine shoots. The rest is now history after his career path was paved and his work has continued to gain gravitas since.

All works in the exhibition are shot on Leica cameras including the Q, S-System and the SL-System, which Gray cites as giving him the freedom to produce the work he always wanted due to the sublime way it captures light and the wide scope of lenses available.

The photographs in the exhibition are available for purchase. Please contact the gallery for more information.

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22 June - 31 August 2023

Bryan Adams: Classics

Leica Gallery London is excited to present, in collaboration with CROSSOVER Hamburg, a collection of Bryan Adams’ most recognised portraits, alongside a group of brand-new photographs. This exhibition is in partnership with ATLAS Gallery London, who will also be showing a corresponding exhibition focusing on his most recent work, with each gallery showing their own curated selection.

Bryan Adams is a Canadian musician, singer, composer, producer, photographer and philanthropist. A self-taught photographer, Adams began by documenting his own work on tour before he became a professional photographer in the late 1990s. He has photographed many fellow creatives and important individuals, including today’s most revered and loved musicians, actors, models, sportsmen and political figures, as well as the British Royal family. His portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip is held in the National Portrait Gallery collection in London, alongside more than twenty other portraits by him.

Not only is the artist introducing the use of coloured Plexiglas for the first time as part of the work, but also, many of the photographs have remained previously unpublished until now. 

Bryan Adams’ works are held in European and international private and public collections.

All works in the exhibition are for sale, please contact us for more information.

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12 May - 11 June 2023

Jason Lee: Selected American Photographs 2008 – 2020

Leica Gallery London has announced it will be showing photographs by the actor, skateboarder, and photographer Jason Lee from 12th May until 11th June 2023. The series is a product of Lee’s visual observations with his camera whilst traversing the American landscape and harks back to his photography forefathers, such as the black and white work of William Christenberry.

For Lee, jumping in his car, driving around and shooting is how he likes to occupy his time:

“Since my first photographic outings in my native California in 2006, where I explored a more rural, perhaps neglected face of the state, and the many subsequent outings zigzagging through the West Coast, the Southwest, and Texas, I remain fascinated by the American landscape, by evidence of cancellation and departure and the environmental contradictions that make up our collective everyday view. These conflicts, at once strange and beautiful, this is where the questions are. It’s then and now splitting time, man and nature pushing up against each other, and progress forever forcing itself on the contented. And somewhere in the middle you make pictures.” - Jason Lee

The exhibition will coincide with the release of Lee’s latest monograph TX | CA 17 published by Stanley/Barker. Prints from the exhibition will be for sale together with signed copies of the monograph and a limited amount of copies of In the Gold Dust Rush also published by Stanley/Barker.

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26 March - 30 April 2023

Andy Summers - Harmonics of the Night / A Series of Glances

This exhibition focuses on the wanderings of Andy Summers during his nomadic life as an international touring musician, relentlessly travelling across the globe from Europe to the USA. The photographs are taken between 1982 and 2019, capturing intimate moments and random meetings, resulting in bizarre and surreal glimpses into other cultures.

Andy Summers has been active as a photographer since 1979 with numerous exhibitions, magazine essays, publications, and more recently, keynote presentations of his photography synced with his musical compositions. The recipient of many music awards, he is also a Doctor of the Arts and a Chevalier des Artes et Lettres.

His photographs have been shown to huge acclaim in galleries and museums worldwide, including France, Australia, Japan, Canada, Spain and the USA, accompanied by feverish magazine coverage. Andy Summers has published five photographs books to date.

The exhibition will showcase 25 photographs, all of which are available for purchase together with two exclusive publications - Harmonics of the Night - a bespoke concertina-style limited edition memento of the exhibition and A Series of Glances the new coffee table book produced by TeNeues.

For more information about the exhibition and prints, please contact Leica Gallery London at gallery.london@leica-camera.com.

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23 February – 21 March 2023

Photographs from the James Bond Archive

From Sean Connery and Timothy Dalton to Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig: Leica Gallery London is set to host an exhibition of photographs, spanning six decades of iconic James Bond films. The images on display capture classic moments with cast and crew, shining a light on the secret agent’s enduring legacy. The Photographs from the James Bond Archive exhibition is on display until 21st March 2023.

The prints are for exhibition purposes only and are not available for sale, please contact gallery.london@leica-camera.com for more information.

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Thomas Hoepker Magnum Photos
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Image by Thomas Hoepker
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8 January – 12 February 2023

Thomas Hoepker - Wanderlust

In January 2023 Leica Gallery London will showcase 20 of Thomas Hoepker’s photographs, with a particular focus on his colour documentary stills. The works span decades, beginning in the 1960s and ending in 2013.

The exhibition also ties in with one of Hoepker’s classic images, Advertisement and passengers on bus. New York City 1963 being chosen as the Leica Picture of the Year 2022. This work is one of a larger portfolio of ‘Leica Legends’ prints which will be available exclusively through the global Leica Galleries as a limited-edition collector’s print.

Thomas Hoepker (b.1936 Germany) studied art history and archaeology before working for various German publications and then joining the staff of the prestigious Stern magazine as a photo-reporter in 1964. In 1966, whilst on assignment for German publication Kristall, he produced his seminal and seminal series “The Greatest”, about Muhammad Ali.

Magnum began to distribute Thomas Hoepker’s photographs in 1964 and from the 1970s he became involved in documentary film making, first in Germany and then in New York whilst working as a correspondent for Stern magazine. Hoepker became the photography director of the American subsidiary of Geo magazine from 1978-81 and in 1989 he joined Magnum as a full member where he championed the colour feature.

Thomas Hoepker is widely recognised for his personal humility, tight visual statements and refined imagery. His work is utterly committed to the truth and captures the quiet and everyday - he is a true example of the concerned photographer - and still after over 60 years of taking photographs is considered one of the greatest representatives of humanistic photojournalism. His photographs are world-renowned and are held in both International and private collections.

Prints will be for sale upon request, please contact gallery.london@leica-camera.com for more information.

Image Information

1 Man standing in front of a hot dog advert, New York City, 1960
Muhammad Ali underneath elevated trains, Chicago, Illinois 1966

All images © Thomas Hoepker / Magnum Photos

2022

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Image by Franziska Stünkel
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14 November 2022 - 4 January 2023

Franziska Stünkel - Works from Coexist

Leica Gallery London is pleased to announce the first UK exhibition of the internationally acclaimed series 'Coexist' by the German photographer and film director Franziska Stünkel.

Stünkel has committed the last 13 years to travel the globe with her Leica, subtly capturing visual layers whilst photographing fleeting moments and engaging the viewer to consider how we coexist as people in our habitats. Stünkel’s unique photographs are created by shooting multiple reflections through glass and processing exactly what she has frozen in that moment - without any re-touching or deletion.

Photographing with a Leica M has become an essential part of Franziska's work. Starting with the M9, and now the M11, she utilises the compact nature of the camera to allow her to go unnoticed as a photographer – she comments: “When I photograph, I want to be part of my surroundings. The Leica M is small and makes this possible. It has become a part of me. I live with it.”

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Heavy is the Mantle
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1 October - 6 November 2022

Holly-Marie Cato - Heavy is the Mantle

Heavy is the Mantle follows Bishop Herbert Cato in the days before stepping down as presiding leader of City Mission Church. Spurred on by the nostalgia of attending Sunday service with her late grandmother, Holly-Marie Cato explores her fascination of Christianity within the Caribbean community, from swishing pulpit gowns, praise breaks, taking communion and the theatre of exhortations.

Heavy is the Mantle, is Cato’s debut solo exhibition at Leica Gallery London, exploring the spiritual and symbolic mantle of responsibility church leaders carry with reverence, and the task of passing that mantle and tradition on to the following generation.

This work is dedicated to the late Bishop Noreen Simpson who committed her life to serving the Lord and her community.
“For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.” Luke 12:48 NKJV

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13 June - 25 September 2022

Bruce Gilden - Wall Portraits (Colombia)

Leica Camera is thrilled to announce a new exhibition at Leica Gallery London from celebrated photographer Bruce Gilden. The name Bruce Gilden is synonymous with striking images - his unique and confrontational style has made him a stand-out Icon in the pantheon of legendary American street photographers.

Born in Brooklyn in 1946, he has produced long detailed bodies of work in Coney Island,  New York City, Haiti, Japan, France, Ireland, England and across America. Gilden initially worked in black and white film for years, producing one of a kind candid images of passers-by made with Leica and flash on hand. He has now expanded his famous modus operandi during the last decade to encompass digital colour photography and posed portraits. Gilden's work has been exhibited in Museums and galleries since the 1970s and he has published no less than 23 monographs of his work.

Now Leica Gallery London is showing Bruce Gilden's unseen ongoing portrait series taken on the street in Bogotá, Colombia. These wall portraits continue to reflect Gilden's attraction to vibrant and out of the mainstream characters. And this time in Bogotá, walking the streets of the capital’s working class neighbourhoods and inspired by the exuberant colours of the city’s walls, the street master found the perfect frame to shine a powerful light on ordinary passers by.  

All prints in the exhibition are for sale, please contact gallery.london@leica-camera.com for more information.

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11 May - 10 June 2022

Ana María Arévalo Gosen - Días Eternos (Eternal Days)

“I am very angry, sad and ashamed, all of the time. At the beginning, it was hard to leave the centres without crying, and even to come back home, because of the shock. The rage is what wakes me up sometimes to work; I am so angry, I have to keep on going.”

Leica Gallery London is proud to announce the first UK showing of the work by the 41st LOBA winner Ana María Arévalo Gosen: Días Eternos (Eternal Days).

The crisis in Latin American penal systems, and the shocking reality for women inmates is the emotional and disturbing subject of this series. Thousands of women sit in over-crowded prisons and detention centres. They live in totally inhumane conditions without space, hygiene, medical care or any measure of respect and justice. Previously nominated for several awards this body of work opens the door to a daily existence which seems hopeless.

Upon returning to her home country after a long time living in Europe, the Venezuelan photographer was told about the terrifying conditions of the country's female prisons. Stunned by her first impression of the spaces she saw, Gosen pursued the task to get behind the system with her camera and reveal how desperate the poor and vulnerable were without justice. Despite the law decreeing that there is a 45-day limit on deciding if inmates in detention centres should go to prison or be set free, the system often fails and women wait endlessly for days, months and sometimes years.

As a result, the images are almost unbearable to witness - with the viewer wondering how these people survive in these claustrophobic conditions - where is the air or access to fresh water, these women are being caged like animals.

Since 2017, Gosen has visited 4 prisons and 11 detention centres and has now extended her quest to El Salvador where she also works with women who are being rehabilitated into society. She is adamant she will not cease this work until something changes.

The exhibition will show a selection of 20 images from the series.

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7 April - 8 May 2022

Werner Bischof - A Life in Photographs

The Swiss-born photographer Werner Bischof was already receiving international recognition as early as 1945 after the publication of his work on the devastation caused by the Second World War - and close on the heels of opening his own photography and advertising studio in Zurich in 1942. 

In the years that followed, Bischof travelled to Italy and Greece for Swiss Relief, an organisation dedicated to post-war reconstruction. In 1948, he photographed the Winter Olympics in St Moritz for LIFE magazine. After trips to Eastern Europe, Finland, Sweden and Denmark, he also worked for Picture PostThe ObserverIllustrated and Epoca. Significantly, Bischof was the first photographer to join Magnum Photos after its formation in 1949 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, George Rodger and David 'Chim' Seymour. 

Among others, the works in the exhibition include colour photographs taken in New York in 1953, Bischof’s Japanese images, which have now become instantly recognisable and synonymous with his name, and poignantly his work in a remote part of Peru taken the month he died - Werner Bischof tragically died in a road accident in the Andes in May 1954.

Leica Camera UK is proud to collaborate with the Estate of Werner Bischof and bring to London for the first time oversized prints of some of Bischof's most revered icons. All prints in the exhibition are for sale.

Image credits

Frida Kahlo in her studio, Mexico City 1954 / © Werner Bischof / Magnum Photos
Shinto Priests in the courtyard of the Meiji Shrine, Tokyo, Japan / © Werner Bischof / Magnum Photos
Street gorge, New York City, USA 1954 / © Werner Bischof / Magnum Photos
Breast with Grid, Zurich, Switzerland 1940 / © Werner Bischof / Magnum Photos

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23 February - 3 April 2022

Jocelyn Bain Hogg - A Portfolio

I’ve seen the dark side of organised crime, been shot at in Palestine, stood on the podium in Ibiza’s Manumission with Fatboy Slim, winked at by Uma Thurman in Cannes and fallen over in front of Joan Rivers wearing my kilt at The Oscars. A photographer always, I grabbed my Leica first, not the up-flying garment that exposes a true Scot, or the look on Joan Rivers’ face. It was a smile, I think. - Jocelyn Bain Hogg

Jocelyn Bain Hogg has covered fashion for Vogue, documented events for the Sunday Times Magazine and spent 10 years of his life living with some of London's most notorious gangsters culminating in his seminal body of work and sell out publication; The Firm, published 21 years ago as of February 2022.

Bain Hogg began his career in photography whilst still at Lancing school and then went on to study photography at Newport College under David Hurn.

In the 1980s and 1990s, he easily transitioned from being a publicity photographer for the BBC to a fashion photographer working in Milan and Paris. After being left broken-hearted by a model girlfriend, he shunned fashion and worked on numerous editorial and commercial assignments to distract himself from his personal life. During this time, he accompanied a journalist who was meeting with two London Gangsters - a serendipitous moment that eventually led to Bain Hogg gaining exclusive access and the trust of British society's underworld and the creation of his notorious photographic series The Firm.

Jocelyn Bain Hogg is a member of the VII photo agency and has published seven books to date.

2021

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10 December 2021 - 13 February 2022

Esther Haase: Esther's World

"Esther's pictures celebrate the joy of being, passion, the self-confident play with sexuality, the escape from the rigid corset of everyday life...Her female characters are self-confident and sovereign, like Esther herself they are full of energy and emotion, always in a state of dynamism." - F.C. Gundlach

Esther Haase is a German born photographer who brings her former training in dance and knowledge of performance to the magical, decadent and fluid world she creates with her camera. Working for international fashion publications and some of the most revered fashion brands Haase creates a narrative spinning a seductive visual story for all to participate in. Shooting on the Leica S she conjures moments that satisfy the demands of a spectacular brief but also satisfy the viewer emotionally - drawing us to the characters and allowing us, for a fleeting moment, to inhabit Esther's World.

Leica Gallery London is proud to present the artist's first solo show, curated by Sebastian Lux from the F.C. Gundlach Foundation. 

The exhibition is composed of colour and black & white images carefully selected from her career of almost three decades. 

Works in the exhibition are available for purchase, please enquire here.

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11 November – 5 December 2021

Paul Guilmoth: At Night Gardens Grow

Paul Guilmoth’s At Night Gardens Grow is an elegy to a queer world that rests between the personal landscapes of home, and the ubiquitous terrains of identity.

At Night Gardens Grow is about the island it was created on, just as much as it’s about the interior worlds we carry with us. Combining carefully crafted large-format photographs with more impulsive documentary photographs, Guilmoth moves through the found and fabricated landscapes of somewhere that’s never quite fixed or distinguished, but palpably familiar.

These photographs have one foot in modern America and the other in a land of the past - haunted by the ghosts of lived experience, family, and the land we inhabit.

This exhibition precedes the second monograph by the photographer, with the same title, which will be available in November and published by Stanley/Barker. Guilmoth’s books have previously been shortlisted for the Paris Aperture Photobook Award and the Lucie Photobook Prize in 2021. Signed copies will be available for purchase.

This will be the first time Guilmoth is exhibiting this work and the first time their work will be shown in the UK.

About the Photographer

Paul Guilmoth is an American photographer living in London. They studied photography in Portland, Maine and have exhibited extensively in both the US and Europe before moving to the UK. Works from their series, 'Sleep Creek' are held in the MoMA collection.

 

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10 September - 15 October 2021

NO TIME TO DIE – BEHIND THE SCENES

No Time to Die – Behind the Scenes is an exclusive photography exhibition featuring behind-the-scenes photos shot on Leica cameras by long- time producer Michael G. Wilson, James Bond actor Daniel Craig, and the renowned photographers Nicola Dove and Greg Williams. The exhibition will present an edit of 25 images curated by Michael G. Wilson.

Further exhibitions will be on show in Tokyo, Osaka, Vienna, Frankfurt, Los Angeles, Singapore, China, Seoul and Salzburg in September/October 2021. A portfolio of No Time To Die – Behind the Scenes will be published in the magazine Leica Fotografie International 7/2021, that will appear on September 20, 2021.

© 2021 Danjaq and MGM. NO TIME TO DIE, and related James Bond Indicia © 1962–2021 Danjaq and MGM. NO TIME TO DIE, and related James Bond Trademarks are trademarks of Danjaq. All Rights Reserved.

 

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22 July – 15 August 2021

Alan Schaller: Life Must Go On

Leica Gallery London will showcase Alan Schaller’s new exhibition in its Mayfair Gallery. Alan Schaller is a London-based photographer who specialises in black and white photography. His work is often abstract and incorporates elements of surrealism, geometry, high contrast and the realities and diversities of human life.

‘Life Must Go On’ is a collection of photographs taken in the UK, predominantly in London, during the pandemic in 2020. Schaller decided to focus his attention on finding moments of positivity in such a difficult time. The sheer lack of people on the streets turned his eye to nature and wildlife more so than any previous work, merging his distinctive geometric and architectural style with natural forms.

All prints are available to buy in three sizes which are signed, dated and editioned by the photographer.

A statement from the photographer

“The year 2020 posed many challenges for everyone around the world. As a Londoner, I spent the entirety of the pandemic in the UK. All of the work in this exhibition was shot in the UK during this time, predominantly in the capital.

As a street photographer, I photograph life around me but rather than focus on the already well-documented trauma the country was going through, I chose to try and carry on as best I could and to find moments of positivity to just be creative. With a distinct lack of people on the streets, I found myself focusing on the animals and wildlife around London more than I have done before.

Truth be told, photography really gave me structure and helped me hugely in terms of having a routine and feeling positive about life around me. I have had a particularly hard year, with the passing of my mother on January 4th, 2021. These images and importantly, the pursuit of finding them, has helped me in an emotional sense immeasurably during the months of illness. This difficult experience has given me a renewed passion and appreciation for photography and has highlighted how much it brings me.

I dedicate this exhibition to my mother, who supported me throughout my life and encouraged me down the creative path. She was present at my last show with Leica in London, and I know would have loved to see this one. All this work has never been exhibited before and it brings me great pleasure to share it.”

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12 April - 23 June 2021

Phil Penman: Street

Acclaimed street photographer, Phil Penman, will show a selling exhibition of his work at Leica Gallery London from 12th April 2021. The exhibition, 'STREET' will exhibit 14 limited edition prints the British-born photographer has captured over two decades photographing New York City, its inhabitants and 'all it has to offer'.

Penman documented the rapid flux of New York City’s streets – its living and breathing - on various Leica M cameras and the Leica SL. His debut book, ‘STREET’, which launched in 2019 as the number one release on Amazon for street photography, has since become a best seller and recently featured at MOMA, New York.

The exhibition shows a range of images from every corner of the vibrant city, from New York businessmen, colourful Harlem streets to urban skateboarders in Brooklyn. “If I was to say what I hope to achieve with my street photography, it would be to keep documenting the ever-changing streets of New York City in all its rat-infested, garbage-mounted glory.”

Penman credits Leica as a big part of his success, "I was sold a Leica M7 by a friend and became addicted to the quality of the glass and simplicity the camera gave me. I was now free to concentrate purely creatively.”

All prints for sale. For more information, click here.

2020

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13 October 2020 - 11 April 2021

Ian Berry: Living Apart/Water Worldwide

After World War II, the South African government gradually developed rules and regulations to preserve the country’s white minority – a state of being more commonly known as Apartheid.

The British photographer Ian Berry recorded this aspect of South African society and the resulting racial tensions, social difficulties and unnatural way that people, who could co-exist happily, were commanded to spend their lives Living Apart, hence the title of his nationally exhibited body of work and sell-out book was born.

Leica Gallery London are delighted to show select images from Berry’s ongoing passion, Living Apart, recorded over a period of nearly 40 years. In addition to these seminally recognised works, the gallery will be exhibiting key photographs from another long-term essay on water. Berry poignantly illustrates his personal concern regarding global water shortages, especially in developing countries.

Ian Berry has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1962 since he was invited to join by Henri Cartier- Bresson. Berry is a multi-award-winning photographer, he was the first contract photographer for the Observer Magazine in the 1960s and has undertaken important editorial assignments for National Geographic, Fortune, Stern, Geo, Esquire, Paris-Match and LIFE, among others.

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20 February - 13 April 2020

Chris Steele-Perkins: The Pleasure Principle

“There is only one famous person in the book,” says Chris Steele-Perkins of his photobook The Pleasure Principle. “It was a deliberate choice as I wanted the book to be about ‘ordinary’ people. The one exception is Margaret Thatcher as she defined Britain in the 80s in a way nobody else did. I could argue that while she is clearly centre frame, the photograph is as much about the acolytes and her effect on them, than it is about her. The photo was taken at the Conservative Party ball in Blackpool at the moment she made her entrance. I think I made a couple of frames before being pushed and elbowed aside by the mob of fans, press and security.”

Some of the most seminal photo stories in history have been created by people from one Nationality observing another – Swiss-born Robert Frank’s view of The Americans is a revered example of this. Steele-Perkins, himself born of a Burmese mother and an English father, had grown up in a country he never felt fully part of. Through this body of work published in 1989 he observes, often as an outsider, the rituals that different people employ in pursuit of happiness and how communal activities can cut across class and location. What we witness via these images is both familiar and uncomfortable.

The exhibition at Leica Gallery London showcased 22 prints from The Pleasure Principle, including some now very rare vintage Cibachromes – the majority of the Cibachromes made at the time have now been acquired by Tate.

Chris Steele-Perkins studied psychology at Newcastle University (1967-70) before moving to London in 1971 where he worked as a freelance photographer. He worked extensively in Britain and abroad throughout the 1970s, and in 1979 published his first book; The Teds. He joined Magnum in the same year and began working on projects in the third world. He continues to work in the UK and abroad. Chris Steele-Perkins is represented by Magnum Photos, London.

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31 January - 17 February 2020

Dafydd Jones: The Vanity Fair Years

In 1988 Dafydd Jones was invited to New York by the journalist and editor Tina Brown to cover parties for Vanity Fair magazine initially for a month's try-out. Travelling light, with just 2 rangefinder Leicas with 3 lenses, a light meter, a couple of tiny starblitz flashes and one Metz flash he arrived at JFK airport one late afternoon. The magazine already had a stuffed diary of parties and events for him to photograph, starting with a book party that evening at the Royalton Hotel.

Jones was offered a contract and glad to escape his reputation as ‘the photographer’ for British Tatler magazine he moved over with his family. It was the glory period of magazines. If Condé Nast in London was frugal, in comparison it seemed New York was where they spent the profits. The magazine was on a roll, bursting with advertising having been saved from failure by Tina Brown, who had a reputation for pushing people to their limits.

Leica Gallery London will be showing a capsule collection from this body of work accrued by Dafydd Jones during this very particular time – the decadent heyday of the magazine covering lavishly glamorous parties in Los Angeles and New York brimming with glittering stars and socialites at the peak of their sparkle.

2019

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13 December 2019 - 27 January 2020

Pierre Gonnord: Nature Tales

"I choose my contemporaries in the anonymity of the big cities because their faces, under the skin, narrate unique, remarkable stories about our era. Sometimes hostile or distant, almost always fragile behind the opacity of their masks, they represent specific social realities and another concept of beauty. I also try to approach the unclassifiable, timeless individual, to suggest things that have been repeated over and over since time began.”

Pierre Gonnord was born in France in 1963 and has spent the last 20 years predominately working in Spain as a photographer. He is self-taught and uses elements of classical portraiture to depict his subjects – dramatic lighting, traditional composition and more often than not a dark background. Drawing his inspiration from the great masters of portrait genre, Pierre Gonnord focuses on the people he finds on the streets of Europe. He views his carefully chosen subjects through a lens of deep compassion creating sumptuous images which project our minds back to the 17th and 18th Centuries.

The exhibition at Leica Gallery London showcased for the first time new diptychs by the artist – portraits of human characters paired with animals. Gonnord draws on the rich visual tapestry of time-old fables bringing to life the idea of a mythical animal or magical creature and then fitting this being with its human counterpart. In these portraits he asks the viewer to look beyond the genetic profile of each subject, feel their individual spirit and personality and also the relationship within each juxtaposition.

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6 November – 8 December 2019

Nan Goldin: A Diary

Nan Goldin has become renowned for her fearless documentation of love, sexuality, glamour, death, pain and substance use abound. Her work, strongly autobiographical is a mirror of her own life and a visual document of a seductive and captivating world full of pathos, demons and sensuality teaming with human visceral bonds and complex relationships.

The images in the Leica Gallery London exhibition are largely drawn from her seminal social document or as she refers to it ‘the diary I allow people to read’ – The Ballad of Sexual Dependency which spans the 70s/80s and 90s. By opening the world of her friends in a truly intimate way through powerful transgressive photographs she paved the way for such contemporary artists as Corinne Day and Juergen Teller.

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4 September – 20 October 2019

Joel Meyerowitz: The Everyday Chaos of Ordinary Life

‘I learned, I think everything I know about being an artist, using a Leica on the streets. It taught me to understand human nature and to predict even the kinds of little things that might be happening. It has engaged my curiosity with the world and the meaning that comes out of the world. It’s really been an instrument of my education and development as an artist. That’s a mighty tool.’ Joel Meyerowitz

Joel Meyerowitz was born in New York in 1938 and grew up in the Bronx. He studied painting and initially worked as an advertising art director. Meyerowitz began shooting on 35 mm colour film in 1962. In the following year, he combined this with black-and-white before returning to the richness of storytelling in colour. New York always remained the dominant focus of his life as a photographer – from his early works from the 1960s to his evocative images taken at Ground Zero in the aftermath of 9/11.

The turning point that led to Meyerowitz’s decision to become a photographer was an encounter with Robert Frank in the early 1960s. Fascinated by the work of his great role model, he decided to dedicate his life to street photography. He sights Frank as a great inspiration and mentor stating that his seminal book The Americans changed his life, making him realise that photography could produce a form of poetry - albeit a dark one.

In the following years, he captured visual epiphanies on the streets of New York. Here, he found a living stage for his curious observation of people and the chance scenarios of a big city. He refined the methods he learned on the streets of New York on an extended trip through Europe in 1966/67. The images in the Leica Gallery London exhibition focus on these first decades of Meyerowitz’s career showing how he effortlessly moves between colour and black and white film – championing both equally.

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17 July - 1 September 2019

MARK COHEN: JUST OUTSIDE

“His intrusive style pays off as his images are seemingly natural, a true snapshot of a moment; an elderly woman in a headscarf smoking a cigarette, a young girl walking, self-conscious and deep in thought. The vulnerability and intimacy of these subjects are due to his ability to crop by getting in close, a behaviour that would intermittently get Cohen in trouble”.

Cohen started taking photographs when he was 12 years old. After later owning his first Leica and looking at the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson he came to the conclusion that for him he could get what he wanted not from travelling the globe like Cartier-Bresson but in the vicinity of his own industrial backyard – Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Characteristically he photographs uncomfortably even audaciously close to his subject with a wide-angle lens and a flash gun focusing on the details of his subjects.

“A lot of times I had trouble with the cops, because if you walk into somebody’s yard and start taking pictures of a rope that’s sitting there, they’ll call the police.”

The exhibition ‘Just Outside’ is quintessential Cohen – the black & white and colour images are from his hometown and hone in on intimate moments between a group of kids or slices of faces up close and personal, weird and wonderful angles are achieved through his nimble balletic moves and quick-as-a-flash snapping. For the first time his black & white images from this show are available to acquire as larger prints.

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4 May - 23 June 2019

RALPH GIBSON

Ralph Gibson has been shooting images for over 60 years with his first introduction to photography taking place during his time in the U.S. Navy in the late 1950s. Gibson went on to study photography at the California School of Fine Arts, to work in the dark rooms of Dorothea Lange and Robert Frank and to create the legendary bodies of work; The Somnambulist, Deja-Vu, Days at Sea and Quadrants to name only some. He founded the publishing company, Lustrum Press in 1970 which published Larry Clarke’s still most credited book to date - Tulsa.

Leica UK are celebrating the career of this master of photography via the curation of two exhibitions across two London venues. Gibson’s less seen documentary style images from his formative years as an artist, 1960 – 1970, will be exhibited as a single artist booth at this year’s Photo London. Concurrently Leica Gallery London will be exhibiting a selection of recognized icons from several of his revered series.

This is the first time in over 20 years that Ralph Gibson’s work has been exhibited commercially in London.

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1 March – 26 April 2019

TRUE GLAMOUR/TRUE GRIT

The official launch of Leica Gallery London will be on 28th February 2019 will be a celebration of British photography at its most chic; ‘True Glamour/True Grit’ promises to open the gallery in style and will showcase sparkling fashion images shot between the 1960’s and 1980’s by legendary Brits Terence Donovan, Brian Duffy, Terry O’Neill and John Swannell.

Arriving at their illustrious photography careers via very different avenues but mutually humble beginnings, their works now feature in both prominent, international public and private collections. Each of these photographers created their own recognisable visual language which was transformative in terms of magazine and broadsheet covers. They broke creative ground during the most ground-breaking of times, producing cutting-edge imagery which still looks contemporary today.

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4 - 17 February 2019

SERGEY MELNITCHENKO

Leica Gallery London will exhibit for the first time ever in the city the Leica Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA) ‘Newcomer’ winner, Sergey Melnitchenko. Melnitchenko (b. 1991  Mykolayiv, Ukraine) began taking photographs in 2009 and since, in a relatively short career has won several awards as well as exhibiting across Europe.

His work is born from a desire to go deep inside the subject using the interactions of those close to him, (whether family or colleagues) to provide the stimulus and creative inspiration for his images. At times painfully personal, visceral and evocative he takes us on an intimate life journey through both an abstract and realist lens.

The exhibition will show works from three of his series ‘Who’s Here?’ documenting his family life with his wife and stepson; ‘Her’ focusing on his wife and muse and his own ‘Nude Self-portraits’, all of which are shot on the Leica he won as part of the LOBA in 2017.

"I like to work with the nude body and to show the beauty of it, yes. But it’s not all.  Also I love the process of photography and I love the reactions of people who see my work. In contemporary art every detail has its own sense; its not only about natural beauty - that is no longer interesting."