Paul Desmond smoking at Playboy’s Penthouse — Open Edition

Iconic Images owns or represents many of the world’s most renowned photographers, selling fine-art, limited edition prints, creating international touring exhibitions, consigning fine art prints and books to more than 30 galleries worldwide, publishing high-end books and resourcing luxury fashion brand collaborations and editorial image licensing to the world’s leading newspapers, magazines and documentary production companies.

Ted Williams, hailing from Wichita, Kansas, was captivated by jazz from a young age, influenced by legends like Earl Hines and Duke Ellington. Combining his passion for music and photography in the late 1940s, he relocated to Chicago, where he skillfully captured candid portraits of jazz icons. In 1964, Williams documented a historic moment in the civil rights movement, photographing Martin Luther King Jr.'s powerful speech at the Illinois Rally for Civil Rights, cementing his legacy as both a photographer and a witness to history.

His work appeared in major international publications including Time, Newsweek, Look, Playboy and Ebony. His coverage of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival landed him a spectacular 21-page layout in Down Beat magazine. Williams was active on the jazz scene from the late 1940s until the late 1970s. He photographed many of the greats in jazz, including Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong. Williams’ historic archive runs to more than 100,000 images and comprises perhaps the most intimate and complete collection of Jazz’s greatest musicians at work, rest and play.