NEW YORK, NY.- The June Kelly Gallery announces the opening of the new season with an exhibition entitled “Fantasy & Reality,” photographs by LeRoy Henderson that capture the elusive excitement and pageantry of New York City. The exhibition opened on September 6 at the gallery at 166 Mercer Street and will remain on view through October 8.

With camera always in hand, Henderson zooms in on chance encounters and random events with his keen eye and finely honed sense of composition that allow him to create direct and edifying links between fantasy and reality.

Henderson looks for the extraordinary within the ordinary of the everyday lives of New Yorkers. His images, in color, come from a body of work accumulated over a number of years and demonstrate his inexhaustible passion for human drama and an elegant sense of composition as he captures the essence and energy of his subject.
Henderson lives and works in New York City. A native of Richmond, Virginia, he received a bachelor's degree from Virginia State University and a master’s degree from Pratt Institute. He also attended the School of Visual Arts to study photography and film.

Henderson’s work has been shown in many one-person and group exhibitions, including the landmark exhibition Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968, organized by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. The groundbreaking exhibition traveled to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC, the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, and to the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York.

In 2014, Peter Snoad, the playwright, will present, “The Draft,” a multi-media performance that explores the tumult of the Vietnam era through the stories of 10 young Americans. The set will show archival photos that include Henderson’s photograph, “Anti-Vietnam, Why Should I Fight in Vietnam.” The production is scheduled to open in Boston in January.

Henderson is represented in many public and private collections, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Museum of African American Museum of History and Culture, Washington, DC, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, and the Harpo Collection, Chicago, IL.