Henry Leutwyler: Document

Wall Street Journal

Elisa Lipsky-Karasz

Bob Dylan's harmonica, Andy Warhol’s paintbrush, Julia Child’s madeleine tray and Charlie Chaplin’s cane—these are just a few of the over 300 seemingly mundane items that Henry Leutwyler has sought out and photographed over the past 12 years. He envisions the images as intimate, anthropological portraits of the objects’ proprietors.

Smithsonian

Jeff Campagna

Though he's best known as a celebrity photographer, his photographs in Document showcase a different iteration of his minimalist style. Rather than celebrities, the pages of this book are filled with interesting objects owned by intriguing people from history, pop culture, the arts, and sports. The result is an encompassing and unconventional collection of images ranging from Mohandas Gandhi's wire-frame spectacles to Bob Marley's charred-black first guitar to Julia Child's madeleine baking tray. Seemingly ordinary items assume added significance when their owners' identities are revealed.

Smithsonian

Jeff Campagna

Fascinating…. the pages of this book are filled with interesting objects owned by intriguing people from history, pop culture, the arts, and sports.

Time Magazine

Bianca Silva

Featuring 124 photographs of objects, from Jimi Hendrix's red fender to John Lennon's blue-tinted glasses, it offers a humanizing document of society, especially when Leutwyler turns his attention to the footwear of the famous, like Michael Jackson's studded shoe with his initials written under one of the soles, Gene Kelly's beaten up yellow converse and Sylvie Guillem's ballet slippers.

Longreads

Cody Delistraty

The one-of-a-kind project is comprised of 124 photographs of seemingly ordinary items whose history renders them extraordinary: the gun that killed John Lennon, Bob Dylan’s harmonica, Andy Warhol’s paintbrush…

Document

Derrick Gaiter

Among other objects photographed for the release—a Christian Dior tuxedo shirt, a Rasta cap, a pair of Issey Miyake sunglasses, and a Muppet doll—each testifies that their proprietors, however elusive from the public eye, were indeed perfectly imperfect.

Document Journal

Gaitér Derrick

There is tenuousness between what is keepsake and what is discard. Henry Leutwyler chronicles material culture in the similar fashion that a forensic scientist probes incidents of homicide: the personal is political. His new book, Document, is an iconography of possessions owned by some of the 20th century's most significant names like Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon, James Dean, Coco Chanel, and Muhammad Ali.

Christie's

Jonathan Bastable

The objects themselves, if gathered together, would make for a rather peculiar exhibition, a diverse and idiosyncratic kunstkammer. But as a collection of still lifes they have a unity, a cohesiveness that comes from having been subjected to one sensibility and the same forensic eye.

Hyperallergic

Carey Dunne

This notion of magical contagion is part of what makes the photographs in Document, a new book published by Steidl and exhibit at Foley Gallery by Henry Leutwyler, so transfixing. Over the course of 12 years, Leutwyler, a specialist in celebrity portraiture, photographed 124 objects that were somehow connected to famous or notorious individuals, all deceased.

L'Oeil de la Photographie

Gilles Decamps

Document is the result of 12 years of dreaming, searching and hunting down artifacts...Leutwyler’s book is about anthropology, modern archeology and definitely about photography.

L'Oeil de la Photographie

Gilles Decamps

Leutwyler takes us on a journey through popular culture and even though the subjects are missing from the photographs, this is indeed his book of portraits, raw, honest, loving, of sometimes tragic portraits.