Leonard Nimoy: Leonard Nimoy: Ten-Year Anniversary Retrospective
We are proud to present “Leonard Nimoy: The Ten Year Anniversary Retrospective” from March 26 to April 30, 2025. This exhibition celebrates the legacy of Leonard Nimoy, featuring his iconic series including Shekhina and The Full Body Project, alongside personal items and unseen contact sheets. Black and White images were shot with film and hand printed by Nimoy in his darkroom. Color images are digital and the printing was personally supervised by Nimoy. All photographs are signed and numbered.
Personal Items
View one of Leonard’s beloved cameras, the rare vintage Ansco Folding Camera with a Bionic Lens, along with other personal items.For the first time ever, we are exhibiting contact sheets, revealing images from film rolls that have never been seen or reproduced before. These images were displayed as such for Leonard to make final selections in his photographic series.
11×14 in
Ansco Camera
Kodak Brownie
Early Work
Nimoy first experienced the magic of making photographic images as a teenager in the early 1940s. “I was about thirteen,” he says, when he discusses his attraction to the family camera, a bellows Kodak Autographic, which is a cherished part of his collection to this day. His darkroom was the family bathroom of their small Boston apartment. His subjects were family and friends. Nimoy’s first enlarger was a do-it-yourself number built around the same time as the family Kodak.
14×11 in
11×14 in
11×14 in
10.75×13.5 in
14×11 in
14×11 in
See more of Leonard Nimoy’s Early Work here
Shekhina / Dancers
A feminine word in Hebrew, Shekhina is the Talmudic term for the visible and audible manifestations of the Deity’s presence on Earth. Over time, Shekhina came to represent much more — a softer, empathetic feminine counterpart to God who could argue for humanity’s sake, comfort the poor and sick, and stand as the mother of Israel. Nimoy’s first encounter with the mystique of Shekhina began in synagogue at the age of 8. “The men were chanting, shouting and praying in an Orthodox service. It was very passionate, very theatrical,” said Nimoy. His father told him not to look, as the worshippers averted their eyes during blessings recited by the kohanim, or descendants of the priestly class. “I was chilled by the whole thing,” he said. Years later Nimoy’s rabbi explained to him that the entry of Shekhina into the sanctuary to bless the congregation could cast a fatally blinding light. Such a powerful memory inspired the actor/photographer to explore the feminine aspect of God in human form, including the issues of sensuality and sexuality.
11×14 in
5.75×7.5 in
8.5×10.5 in
14×11 in
11×14 in
16×20 in
16×20 in
11×14 in
16×20 in
14×11 in
11×14 in
16×20 in
11×14 in
14×11 in
11×14 in
11×14 in
14×11 in
11×14 in
11×14 in
See more from the Shekhina Project Here
The Full Body Project
“This current body of work is a departure for me. For a number of years, I have been producing images using the female figure. I have worked with numerous models who were professional people earning their living by posing, acting, dancing, or any combination thereof. But, as has been pointed out to me in discussions at exhibitions of my work, the people in these pictures always fell under the umbrella of a certain body type. I’ll call it a “classic” look. Always within range of the current social consensus of what is “beautiful.” In fact, that was the adjective I most often heard when my work was exhibited. The women as they appeared in my images were allotted no individual identity. They were hired and directed to help me express an idea—sometimes about sexuality, sometimes about spirituality—and usually about feminine power. But the pictures were not about them. They were illustrating a theme, a story I hoped to convey.” – Leonard Nimoy
11×14 in
20×14 in
24×18 in
11×14 in
16×20 in
32×40 in
11×14 in
16×20 in
38.5×40 in
8×10 in
11×14 in
16×20 in
20×24 in
35×44 in
16×20 in
16×20 in
8×10 in
11×14 in
16×20 in
35×44 in
23×30 in
The Full Body Deluxe Edition Book
See more of The Full Body Project here
Secret Selves
In November 2008, Leonard Nimoy was at R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, Massachusetts, to begin his latest photographic journey: Secret Selves. We gathered 100 subjects from all walks of life: artists, clergy, politicians, business owners, and asked them the question, Who do you think you are? Each subject was recorded as Mr. Nimoy interviewed them and created a portrait of their “alternate identity.” The results were revealed in major exhibitions at MassMoca (where it became the most visited exhibition in the Museum’s history; and was selected by ArtNet as one of the Top Ten Museum exhibitions of 2010) and at R. Michelson Galleries.
32×26.5 in
24×20 in
39×29 in
71.5×59.5 in
24×20 in
32×26.5 in
24×20 in
32×26.5 in
71.5×59.5 in
24×20 in
32×26.5 in
See more work from Secret Selves here
Hand Series / Self Portraits
11×14 in
16×20 in
10×8 in
16×20 in
9×7 in
9×7 in
11×14 in
11×14 in
16×20 in
11×14 in
16×20 in
See more from this series here
Borghese Series
During a recent artist-in-residence appointment at the American Academy in Rome in 2000, Nimoy produced a series of images based on the Antonio Canova sculpture of Paulina Bonaparte Borghese in the Borghese Gallery in Rome. Nimoy’s challenge was to translate the sensual impact of marble and a somewhat steamy back-story into his photographs. Paulina Bonaparte’s brother, Napoleon, commissioned this sculptural portrait. However, her husband was dismayed by its sensuality, so he concealed it under lock and key so it could not be viewed. During his stay in Rome, Leonard Nimoy decided to photograph the key to his suite cabinet as his comment on the censorship of Paulina’s husband.
11×14 in
11×14 in
11×14 in
11×14 in
11×14 in
See more of the Borghese Series here
The Black and White Series
The Black and White Project, shot in color and printed digitally in a large-scale format is an exquisitely literal investigation of the photograph’s ability to imitate and then re-invent the evanescence of marble sculpture. Stone made flesh made image made alive; perhaps that articulates Nimoy’s ongoing quest for expression of the entirely human in the aesthetically sublime.
16×22 in
35×44 in
20×16 in
26×18 in
28.5×21 in
26×18 in
See More of the Black and White Series here
Eggs
11×14 in
11×14 in
See More of the Egg series here
Eye Contact
In this collection I am concerned with artful voyeurism. The model is given license to explore a personal experience which is often quite moving, although the photographer’s presence inescapably alters the moment. To reclaim their deepest human emotions, the subjects must turn back to the internal space and free themselves of the contact with me or my camera. It is the instant between the private and the seen, that brief affirmation of the self which I find deeply affecting and the one that I strive to capture and pass along to the viewer.
— Leonard Nimoy
10×8 in
10×8 in
8×10 in
8×10 in
8×10 in
10×8 in
10×8 in
10×8 in
This portfolio consists of 25 photographs chosen from his 60 year career as a photographer. Each photograph is printed, numbered, and signed by Mr. Nimoy in an edition of twenty-five 8×10 in images
See More from the Eye Contact Series Here
Contact Sheet
Leonard Nimoy‘s contact sheets reveal a closer look into Nimoy’s film rolls, and photography practice. These contact sheets feature iconic pieces, and photographs that have never been seen or reproduced before. These images were displayed as such for Nimoy to make final selections. In the below prints, you can see the artist’s hand as he numbers, circles, and adjusts the prints.
14.75×10.75 in
14.75×10.75 in
14.5×10.75 in
10.75×14.5 in
14.5×10.75 in
14.5×10.75 in
See More of Nimoy’s Contact Sheets Here
Fascinating Works by Edel Rodriguez
Illustrated works from the book Fascinating written by Rich Michelson, illustrated by Edel Rodriguez.
25.25×20 in
12.625×10 in
13×20 in
8.5×7.5 in
8.5×7.5 in
11×10.5 in