Henry Leutwyler

This book is Henry Leutwyler’s (born 1961) meticulous photographic record of the treasures of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva. In his trademark style, Leutwyler does not merely document objects but creates portraits of them, conjuring their past lives and imbuing the inanimate with character. Leutwyler sifted through the nearly 30,000 objects in the museum, shaping a selection that conveys the vital functions of the Red Cross: to provide humanitarian protection and emergency aid, particularly for the poor and underprivileged. Leutwyler shows us objects famously symbolic of the Red Cross (first-aid kits, uniforms, armbands), confronting various finds (amputation saws, a cannonball) as well as the unexpectedly beautiful: delicate beaded flowers made by a prisoner of war. His focus is on the details of objects, their imperfections, decay and often the damage they have endured: evocative of the people who put them to real humanitarian use.

Henry Leutwyler is certainly no stranger to the art of ballet—for many years he photographed on stage and behind the scenes at the New York City Ballet, culminating in his book Ballet, since published by Steidl in two editions. Yet Misty Copeland pushes Leutwyler’s vision into a new direction: neither a strict portrait of the renowned ballerina nor a mere documentation of her exceptional craft, this is an intimate collaboration between photographer and subject that explores the subtleties of Copeland as a performer, person, persona and idol.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in San Pedro, California, Copeland’s biography has all the arc of a fairy tale: she was living in a shabby hotel room, struggling with five siblings for a place to sleep on the floor, when she began ballet studies at the late age of 13. She soon proved a prodigy: within three months of her first class she was dancing en pointe, in just over a year she was performing professionally. In 2015 she became the first African American woman appointed principal dancer at the prestigious American Ballet Theater in the 75 years of its existence. In Copeland’s own words: “The path to your success is not as fixed and inflexible as you think.”

Born in 1961 in Switzerland, Henry Leutwyler moved to Paris in 1985 and established himself there as an editorial photographer. In 1995 he moved to New York City where he lives and works today. His books with Steidl are Neverland Lost: A Portrait of Michael Jackson (2010), Ballet: Photographs of the New York City Ballet (2012), Document (2016), Hi there! (2020) and the forthcoming Philippe Halsman: A Photographer’s Life.

In this book New York-based photographer Henry Leutwyler (born 1961) documents the professional and private life of renowned Life magazine photographer Philippe Halsman, who had a total of 101 Life covers to his name—more than any other photographer. Leutwyler first saw Halsman’s work as a teenager in an exhibition at the International Center of Photography in 1979; now, more than 40 years later, his fascination has finally found fruition.

With his trademark approach, both forensic and imaginative, he teases out the meanings held within inanimate objects and how they reveal their owner’s personality. In close collaboration with the Halsman Archive, Leutwyler has photographed hundreds of objects belonging to Halsman—from his cameras to his glasses, from his passport to a range of letters (from Janet Leigh, Richard Avedon and Richard Nixon, to name but a few), from table-tennis bats and balls to a collection of jewel-like, paper-wrapped soaps from around the world—in the words of Halsman’s grandson Oliver Halsman Rosenberg, “magical evidence of a time that will never exist again.”

Art Deco diamond bracelets, an invitation to the opening of the Statue of Liberty and the 128.54-carat Tiffany Diamond set in a diamond necklace are among the hundreds of jewels, gems, objects and ephemera featured in The Tiffany Archives. The mix of remarkable masterworks is exactly what founder Charles Lewis Tiffany would have wanted in this book: an invitation to discover the magnificent story behind Tiffany & Co. with a selection of objects from the house’s archives, the majority of which have never before been seen or photographed.
Two years in the making, the project traces the story of Tiffany’s rise to preeminence, its early mastery of diamonds and its extraordinary craftsmanship in silver. The book includes the earliest known Tiffany Blue Box and various connections to popular culture, such as the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Henry Leutwyler, known for his ability to infuse a sense of soul into inanimate objects, turns his lens to Tiffany’s stunning scope of historical objects. This contemporary presentation, without chronology or hierarchy, invites new interpretation and appreciation of the multitude of treasures that define the house’s rich heritage.
The works of New York City–based Swiss photographer Henry Leutwyler (born 1961) have been seen in the New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Vanity Fair and the Wall Street Journal, among others. His previous books with Steidl include Neverland Lost: A Portrait of Michael Jackson (2010), Ballet: Photographs of the New York City Ballet (2012), Document (2016), Hi There! (2019), Philippe Halsman: A Photographer's Life (2022) and Misty Copeland (2023).

As with his past photographic portrayals of celebrity relics, Henry Leutwyler’s (born 1961) method in Hi there! is to coax an object’s meanings to the surface in photos at once deadpan and forensic, but observed with a reverence that makes it come alive. Here we peer into Frank Sinatra’s private pocket phone book. From what today seems like the quaintness of analogue-era 1970s, we come to know Sinatra’s circle and speculate on the meaning of those relationships. The over 100 names and numbers here include direct lines to Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Spiro Agnew, Barry Goldwater and other important governmental figures, through which Sinatra had immediate access to the American political machine.

With connections to American businessmen Walter Annenberg, Laurance Rockefeller, Marvin Davis and John Kluge (at the time reputedly the richest person in the country), Sinatra knew just how to tap into capital. Among his fellow artists who were just a phone call away were Dean Martin, Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, Jerry Lewis and Buddy Rich. We even learn the names of Sinatra’s doctors and dentists, no doubt the best in their profession for Ol’ Blue Eyes.