Stop by the Hammer Museum at UCLA to check out “Becoming Van Leo,” featuring the work of Armenian Egyptian photographer Van Leo. Born Levon Boyadjian to Armenian parents in Turkey in 1921, he moved to Egypt with his family as a child and eventually settled in Cairo, where he became one of the Arab world’s most celebrated studio photographers. The exhibition traces his early camera work in the 1930s, when he used friends and family as models, through his self-portraiture experiments in the 1940s and 1950s, to his studio work that extended into the 1990s.
“Becoming Van Leo,” curated by Negar Azimi, will be on display through Nov. 5. The exhibition is organized by the Hammer with collaboration of the Rare Books and Special Collections Library at the American University in Cairo, with additional support and collaboration provided by the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut.
