For sale is a wonderful and original gelatin silver print black-and-white photo of the legendary and world famous artist Fernand Leger by celebrated photographer Sanford Roth.
Sanford Roth was well-known for his photographs featuring celebrities in very intimate and engaging moments. He was friends with many of them and they trusted him and allowed him to photograph them at moments of lesser celebrity regard. He often took photographs of artists in their studio engaged in thought.
In this photograph Sanford Roth captures Fernande Leger in a very intimate moment in his studio with some of his iconic paintings in the background. Fernande Leger here is engaged in what seems to be a poignant moment of reflection perhaps looking back on his career and lifer as a famous artist.
This photograph is mounted on cardboard stock.
It is an overall excellent condition with only small tiny nicks at the very edges of the print. We have taken close-up detail pictures of all four corners for your consideration.
It is an original gelatin silver print photo from the photographer Sanford Roth.
This is a well-known and highly collected photograph by this famous photographer.
There is some pencil inscription on the back.
It measures:
Photo - 13 5/8" x 9 1/2"
Backing - 18" x 14"
Sanford Roth was born and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. His profession of managing chain stores brought him to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s, where he met and married Beulah Spigelgass. In 1946, he quit his career to pursue his real passion—photography—and the Roths moved to Europe. Soon Sanford, also known as "Sandy", became a photojournalist not only to the film industry, but to other notable people of his time.
The Roths traveled between Hollywood, Europe, and other locations around the globe. They shared a passion for cats, shopping, clothes, Paris, Rome, flea markets, Roman antiquities, art, and people. Sanford Roth's photographs became synonymous with a sense of quality and intimacy capturing unreachable celebrities and artists in moments when their guard was down.
Sandy with his wife Beulah, met, entertained, photographed and became friends with the who's who of post World War II Europe and Hollywood. Those photographs included: Albert Einstein, Alfred Hitchcock, James Dean (a personal friend), Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Audrey Hepburn, Aldous Huxley, Noël Coward, Jimmy Stewart, Christopher Isherwood, Louis Armstrong, Paul Newman, Gino Severini, Blaise Cendrars, Alberto Moravia, Moise Kisling, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Grace Kelly, Danny Kaye, Romy Schneider, Anna Magnani, Jack Lemmon, Deborah Kerr, Igor Stravinsky, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Sophia Loren, Darius Milhaud, Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie, Edwin Hubble, Jean Renoir, Alain Delon, John Wayne, George Antheil, Alberto Burri, Edward G. Robinson, Jean Cocteau, Peter Ustinov, Rossana Podesta, Darryl Zanuck, George Stevens, Colette, Groucho Marx, Tennessee Williams, Ava Gardner, Fred Zinnemann, Cary Grant, and many others.
James Dean:
Roth first met James Dean on the set of Giant and they immediately became friends. Roth would often tell James Dean stories of he and his wife's travels all over Europe. Dean often visited the home of Sandy and Beulah and there are published photographs of Dean playing with their cat. Dean treated the Roths as adoptive parents. Poignantly, Sanford Roth was in James Dean's Ford station wagon driving behind Dean's new Porsche Spyder on the way to the Salinas Road Races on September 30, 1955, when Dean died in a late afternoon traffic accident. Roth took the now famous post-accident photographs. Beulah Roth denied that Sandy ever took any photos of Dean trapped in the wrecked Spyder.
Works:
Sanford Roth's talents were wide and varied. His professional credits are extensive. The following lists where his works have been highlighted
Some highlighted magazines, but not limited to: Time, Life, Look, Fortune, Paris Match, Elle, Der Stern, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Oggi and People.
Among the private collectors who have owned the work of Sanford Roth are Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Colette, and Igor Stravinsky. Other collectors included Francesca Robinson Sanchez (granddaughter of the late actor Edward G. Robinson), Jill Robinson (née Schary), Princess Rachel Starraba (Rome), Gino and Nino Franchina (Rome), Peter Ustinov, Claudia de Guere (France), Mr. Seita Ohnishi (Japan), Leonard Spigelgass (U.S.), L. Fritz Gruber (Germany) and many others.
Sanford Roth's work is held in the permanent public collections of:
Museum of Modern Art, New York City, New York
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California
Musee De La Photographie Ville de Mougins le Maire, Alpes-Maritimes, France
Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, California
Getty Museum Research Center, Los Angeles, California