Richard Levy Gallery is pleased to present Allowed to Grow Old, a selection of photographs by Isa Leshko. For nearly a decade, Leshko visited sanctuaries across America to create intimate photographic portraits of geriatric farm animals. She began this series shortly after caring for her mother who had Alzheimer’s disease. The experience had a profound effect on her and forced her to confront her mortality. Leshko started photographing geriatric animals in order to take an unflinching look at her fear of aging. After she met rescued farm animals and heard their stories, she became passionate advocate for these animals.

Leshko’s first monograph, Allowed to Grow Old was released this April by University of Chicago Press. The book has received advanced praise from Moby, J. M. Coetzee, Carl Safina, and Peter Singer, and received early press coverage in the London Observer and Blouin Art Info. In her essay for Allowed to Grow Old, curator Anne Wilkes Tucker writes: “[Leshko] regards her pictures of animals as portraits with all the attributes of the genre….Her conviction that these subjects are worthy of the viewers’ consideration is consummated in the care she takes to make tonally rich, meticulously printed, and visually seductive prints from her negatives.”

Leshko will sign her new book at the gallery reception on May 3rd.

Leshko has received fellowships from the Bogliasco Foundation, the Culture & Animals Foundation, the Houston Center for Photography, the Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Silver Eye Center for Photography. Her prints are in numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Fidelity Investments, and the Boston Public Library.