Five thousand new photos in the archive!
The Kon-Tiki Museum has enriched its archive with 5,000 new photographs of Thor Heyerdahl's life, work and travels. The images are the collection of the outstanding Italian photographer Walter Leonardi, and originate mainly from the 1980s and 1990s.
Available to journalists and researchers at the Thor Heyerdahl archive.
Walter Leonardi and Thor Heyerdahl
Photography and film are an important part of Thor Heyerdahl's legacy
The Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947 made Thor Heyerdahl (1914–2002) a household name all over the world, and he became the most famous Norwegian of his time. Heyerdahl has since become a historical figure; in 2011 the ThorHeyerdahl archive was entered into UNESCO's Memory of the World register.
Daring ocean crossings in primitive craft made Thor Heyerdahl famous, but what he will be remembered for is his unique storytelling skills and amazing stories that touched people in all corners of the world.
Right photos and film footage were from the start extremely important to Thor Heyerdahl, the communicator, and since 1950 the Kon-Tiki Museum has used this material to pass on Heyerdahl's story to over 17 million visitors.
The Walter Leonardi collection
The Thor Heyerdahl archive contains all the visual material from his first expedition to Fatu Hiva in 1937, through the Kon-Tiki, Aku-Aku and Ra expeditions, and up to the Tigris voyage in 1978. The archive's contents were personally donated by Heyerdahl .
In addition, the museum has actively collected images related to his life and work. The internationally renowned portrait photographer Walter Leonardi (b. 1945) worked closely with Heyerdahl for over 25 years. Their collaboration resulted in a large amount of high quality photographs from expeditions, other travels and private meetings. These images fill a void in the Kon-Tiki Museum's own collection.
Thor Heyerdahl with a Tuareg at Tassili, South-Eastern Algeria.
During his career, Walter Leonardi has worked for such high-profile publications as LIFE Magazine, National Geographic, Newsweek and Time. Leonardi is particularly known for his characteristic portraits of famous people, especially film stars. Later in his career he became a professor of photography at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Turin, Italy.
Walter Leonardi's collection consists of almost 5,000 photographs taken on Thor Heyerdahl's travels and expeditions to Easter Island, Peru, South America, Egypt and Pakistan. In addition to photos from expeditions and travels, there are photos depicting Heyerdahl's life in the Italian village of Colla Micheri, where he settled in 1958. The collection is unique, and many photographs document the final phase, between 1984 and 1998, of Heyerdahl's active life .
It was therefore a significant and important occasion when Walter Leonardi and the Kon-Tiki Museum entered into an agreement for the acquisition of 5,000 digital images related to Thor Heyerdahl in 2019.
The acquisition has been made possible with financial support from the Norwegian Culture Council, in addition to the museum's own resources. The pictures are now preserved for posterity!
