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Duke Ellington
On View
Not on view
Object number2011.56

Duke Ellington

Artist (American, 1917-2006)
Date1947
Mediumgelatin silver print
Dimensionsmat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
sheet: 14 × 11 in. (35.6 × 27.9 cm)
image: 13 1/2 × 10 1/2 in. (34.3 × 26.7 cm)
Credit LinePermanent Collection Fund
Exhibition History"Framing Moments: Photography from KIA's Permanent Collection," KIA (Feb. 6 - May 16, 2021)Label TextJazz was William Gottlieb’s driving passion. He taught himself how to make photographs to illustrate articles he was writing for The Washington Post in the 1930s because the paper would not send a photographer out on assignment with him to cover the music scene. After World War II, Gottlieb moved to New York to work for Down Beat magazine where his pictures of great jazz musicians such as this image of Duke Ellington were published. By shooting into the mirror of the legendary composer’s dressing room, Gottlieb was able to show us all of the surroundings and trappings of the man before he went on stage where he acted the part of the impeccable performer that audiences craved. Gottlieb made only 1,700 photographs during his career, but it is such a historically important body of work that the Library of Congress purchased it from him in 1995. The KIA’s insightful and sensitive portrait of Ellington remains among his most famous and was also included in Gottlieb’s book, The Golden Age of Jazz. [Framing Moments Exhibition, 2021]