Jacques Leiser is an international artist manager[1] and photographer who has represented and collaborated with many of the world's greatest concert pianists, composers, violinists and singers.
Today his photo archives are a vast treasure trove of images of famous musicians and artists including Dmitri Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian, Krysztof Penderecki, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Maria Callas, Sviatoslav Richter, Maurizio Pollini, Krystian Zimerman, Lazar Berman, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Artur Rubinstein, Julius Katchen, Alfred Cortot, Edwin Fischer, Annie Fischer, Clara Haskil, Heinrich Neuhaus, David Oistrakh, Mstislav Rostropovich, Otto Klemperer, Claudio Abbado, as well as Pablo Picasso, Serge Poliakoff, Tennessee Williams, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium and Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
What followed this initial contact was a 37-year professional association and friendship one that included the creation of a remarkable photographic essay on one of the giants of the piano.
Early in 1998, some of Leiser's photographs of Sviatoslav Richter were featured at the Louvre Museum as part of its Film Festival of Great Pianists of the 20th Century.
Subsequent exhibits were held at Lincoln Center, the San Diego Museum of Art, at Portland State University in 1999, at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara in 2001 and at USC in Los Angeles in 2002.