Elmore Leonard (Detroit Portrait series)
Artist
Kurt Novak
(American)
Date2003 - 2005
MediumArchival pigment print on cotton rag paper
DimensionsPaper Size: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
Frame Size: 22 1/2 × 26 1/2 in. (57.2 × 67.3 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Object numberUAC6103
DescriptionKnown as “the Dickens of Detroit” for his visceral portrayals of Detroit and its citizens, Elmore Leonard was a screenwriter and novelist with a focus on crime fiction, suspense thrillers, and Western fiction. Leonard graduated from the University of Detroit in 1950, and in 1953 published his first novel, The Bounty Hunters. Several of Leonard’s novels have acquired film adaptations, including Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, 3:10 to Yuma. The television series Justified is based on a novella by Leonard, “Fire in the Hole.” In 2007, Leonard published Up in Honey’s Room, a novel that takes place in 1940s - the Detroit of Leonard’s youth. In the artist Kurt Novak’s words, this print was designed as a nod to Leonard’s “fun, but occasionally violent” novels and was created as a tribute to the writer’s dark humor and thrilling narratives. Novak himself appears within the composition as the masked criminal, and recalls Elmore’s patience and humor with which he approached the project. All of Novak’s prints are true collaborations with the sitter, and incorporate aspects of the subject’s life and works within the composition. “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
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