exhibitions

NEIL LEIFER

Neil Leifer's photography career has spanned almost 50 years. Best known for his sports photography, Leifer's photos have regularly appeared in every major national magazine, including The Saturday Evening Post, Look, LIFE, Newsweek, and, most often, TIME Magazine and Sports Illustrated.

Leifer became a professional photographer in 1960, at the age of 17.  From 1960 to 1978, he worked at Sports Illustrated as a freelancer, contract and staff photographer.  Neil moved to TIME Magazine in 1978, his photographs appearing on more than 200 Sports Illustrated and TIME Magazine covers by 1990.

Leifer’s sports assignments have taken him around the world a number of times. He has photographed fifteen Olympic Games, four FIFA World Cup soccer tournaments, seventeen Kentucky Derbies, fifteen Masters golf tournaments, countless World Series games, thirteen Super Bowls, and every important heavyweight boxing title fight since 1960.  Leifer has photographed his favorite subject, Muhammad Ali, on more than 70 separate occasions, including 35 of his fights. In August of 2003 The Observer (of London) published a cover story titled: "The World’s 50 Greatest Sports Photographs," featuring two of Leifer’s photographs of Muhammad Ali as #1 (Ali/Williams) and #2 (Ali/Liston) on the list.

Leifer has published 15 books.  The most recent two, Ballet in the Dirt: The Golden Age of Baseball (2007) and Guts and Glory: The Golden Age of American Football 1958-1978 (2008), published by Taschen, are already considered classics. Leifer is now a full-time filmmaker. He has produced and/or directed two feature films, five documentaries and eight short live-action films.

Leifer lives in New York City, and has two children, Jodi & Corey, and four grandchildren, Joey, Taylor, Riley & Ryan.