Perhaps the most well-known photo ever taken of a jazz performer, William Gottlieb’s bittersweet “Billie Holliday” manages to captures both her beauty and her anguish. Gottlieb (1917 – 2006), known for dignified depictions of jazz artists which portrayed their personalities in sensitive, storytelling ways, originally became interested in jazz while listening to records a friend brought him when he was bedridden with food poisoning. Working for major publications, Gottlieb documented the New York and Washington jazz scene from 1938 – 1948 with more than 1,600 photos of major artists including Dizzie Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington.

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