Neil Leifer - The Neil Leifer Picture Collection

The Neil Leifer Picture Collection

The Neil Leifer Picture Collection contains photographs, B&W and color, taken over the last 45 years (mainly in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s) of most of the major sporting events throughout the world.

Among the highlights of the Collection are photographs, many of which have become iconic images from 15 Olympic Games (7 winter and 8 summer), 4 World Soccer Cups, 17 Kentucky Derbies, 15 Masters Golf Tournaments, countless World Series games, every NFL football Championship Game beginning in 1958 and running through the first 12 Super Bowl games. The Collection contains photographs of every important heavyweight title fight since Floyd Patterson beat Ingemar Johansson to regain the title in 1960. Most of the best known photographs of the world’s most recognizable sports hero, Muhammad Ali, are to be found in the NL Collection. The Ali pictures were taken over the last 45 years and include the two best known sports photographs of the 20th Century, Muhammad Ali standing over a KO’d Sonny Liston and a bird’s eye view looking down on a KO’d Cleveland Williams. The Ali vs. Williams photograph was chosen by the London Observer as the number one picture in a cover story titled “The World’s 50 Greatest Sports Photographs”. The Ali vs. Liston picture was chosen number two. The Ali pictures in the collection cover 35 of Ali’s fights including all 3 of the Frazier fights, the famous “Rumble in the Jungle” with George Foreman, all 3 Ken Norton fights and all the other highlights of Ali’s ring career. There are 35-40 posed sittings with Ali, which cover a period beginning in 1965 and as recent as June 2005. In addition to the posed Ali pictures, the Collection contains hundreds of posed photographs of athletes ranging from Mickey Mantle, Jim Brown, George Foreman, Sandy Koufax and Arnold Palmer. As for recent sports heroes, the Collection contains pictures taken in 2005 of Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Derek Jeter, Sasha Cohen, Peyton Manning and many others.