The All Seeing Eye: Blue Note Records Through the Lens of Francis Wolff

The All Seeing Eye: Blue Note Records Through the Lens of Francis Wolff showcases a selection of images from Wolff’s collection of 20,000 photographs of jazz icons taken between 1940-1970. The exhibit contains 44 photographs, all true works of art in which Wolff captured intimate, relaxed portraits of musicians at work, documenting jazz history as it happened.

Berlin-born photographer Francis Wolff fled Nazi Germany in 1939 bound for New York City where he reunited with his childhood friend and fellow jazz enthusiast Alfred Lion and joined him in running his newly founded label Blue Note Records. The visual artistry created with Wolff’s photographs complemented by Reid Miles’ graphic design and consistently superior sound quality by engineer Rudy Van Gelder resulted in Blue Note becoming one of the most influential and longest-running jazz labels in the world. Blue Note artists featured in the exhibition are a true who’s who of jazz history: Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and many more.

On display May – August 2024, Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame (Boston, MA)