Jean-Pierre Leloir
(French, 1931-2010)
"Inauguration du Buste de Sidney Bechet", 1960
gelatin silver print
signed lower left, signed, dated, titled and copyright-marked en verso.
Unframed.
15-3/4" x 12"
A native of Paris, Leloir was fortuitously gifted his first camera by an American serviceman during the Liberation of Paris; by the early 1950s he was being published in newspapers, magazines and journals. Considered one of the pre-eminent jazz photographers, Leloir had a genuine appreciation of the musicians and his love for their work is evident in his vibrant black and white images. As he once stated, "I loved the people I photographed, so I made myself as available, yet as discrete as possible...I wanted them to forget my presence so I could catch those little unexpected moments."

Leloir photographed such jazz luminaries as Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Billie Holiday and Sidney Bechet – the New Orleans born, Parisian expatriate musician and subject of the work offered here. In appreciation and acknowledgment of his work, Leloir was honored by the city of New Orleans. Leloir did not confine himself to just one musical style, and his photographs of Edith Piaf, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones were also lauded by critics and collectors. In 2010, he was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Artes des Lettres, France’s highest honor.

The famed jazz soloist Sidney Bechet was equally at home with the clarinet and the saxophone. Born in New Orleans to a middle class African American musical family, he began performing with his brothers while still a child, working with many of the city’s most accomplished jazz musicians. In his teens, Bechet traveled to Chicago and New York and eventually to Europe with the Southern Syncopated Orchestra. In 1925, as part of the infamous La Revue Negre, whose most famous member was Josephine Baker, Bechet traveled to Paris. While his experience in France was not without issue – he briefly spent time in a Paris jail – he discovered more acceptance, popularity, and personal freedom than he did in the United States. He was to spend much of his time in Europe and, in the early 1950s, Bechet emigrated to France permanently.

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