“This rare portrait photograph was taken by Edward Gajdel. It is rare because at the time that I purchased it there were only three in existence: one owned by Leonard, one by Random House, and the one that I commissioned from the photographer.”
-Yosef Wosk
Photograph: Roz Kelly/Getty Images
Photograph: Tony Russell/Redferns. On stage at the Isle of White 1970
Performing at the Musikhalle in Hamburg in 1970. Photograph: K&K Ulf Kruger OHG/Redferns
In Amsterdam in 1972. Photograph: Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns
In Amsterdam in 1972. Photograph: Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns
A portrait in the early 1970s. Photograph: Jack Robinson/Getty Images
On stage in Denmark in 1972. Photograph: Jan Persson/Redferns
Photograph: Evening Standard/Getty Images/Hulton Archive
At Amsterdam’s Muziektheater in 1988. Photograph: Frans Schellekens/Redferns
At the Mount Baldy Zen Center, east of Los Angeles, in 1995. Photograph: Neal Preston/Corbis
At the 47th Montreux jazz festival in Switzerland in 2013. Photograph: Valentin Flauraud/Reuters
Acknowledging the applause before A Tribute to Leonard Cohen concert at the Jovellanos theatre in Gijon, Spain. Photograph: Javier Soriano/AFP/Getty Images
This photo — Leonard Cohen at home, Los Angeles, September 2016 — is from the Yosef Wosk Collection. Photograph by Graeme Mitchell originally for The New Yorker.
“When I saw this photograph of Leonard in his dark suit emerging from the pool of light behind him, in his polished shoes, recent cane and familiar hat sitting in his sparse backyard balanced by a well-used broom resting against the wooden fence, I was mesmerized. His gaze was calm, his almost smile reminiscent of the Mona Lisa, his posture and that of his cat perfectly intertwined as the ancient friends they were. There was an effortless glow about him despite his body being depleted by illness that was to take him a month after Mitchell and Cohen collaborated on one last masterpiece.
“I asked a friend well versed in the photographic arts to contact Graeme and see if we could purchase an original print. He consented and even advised us to frame it as he had in his own home: with a white metal frame. The origin of the word photograph means “writing with light”, something that great photographers achieve with their camera and great writers—those who invest their deepest soul in every word—achieve with their pen.