Lillian Bassman

Lillian Bassman (June 15, 1917 in Brooklyn) is an American painter and photographer.

"She is as important to fashion photography as Richard Avedon and Irving Penn." Peter Fetterman Carmen 1950.

Her parents were Jewish intellectuals who emigrated from Russia to the United States in 1905 and settled in Brooklyn, New York. She studied at the Textile High School in Manhattan and graduated in 1933. While there, she met the photographer Paul Himmel and they married in 1935. Suzy Parker, Harper's Bazaar, New York, 1952.

From the 1940s until the 1960s, Bassman worked as a fashion photographer for Junior Bazaar and later at Harper's Bazaar, where she promoted the careers of photographers such as Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Louis Faurer and Arnold Newman.  More fashion mileage per dress 1949.

Under the guidance of the Russian emigrant Alexey Brodovitch, she began to photograph her model subjects primarily in black and white. Her work was published for the most part in Harper's Bazaar, between 1950-1965. Jean Shrimpton, circa 1960.

By the 1970s, Bassman's interest in pure form in her fashion photography was out of vogue. She turned to her own photo projects and abandoned fashion photography. Tunic Suit, Sunny Harnett, for Harper's Bazaar, New York, July 1955.

In doing so, she tossed out 40 years of negatives and prints - her life's work. Over 20 years later, a forgotten bag filled with hundreds of images was discovered. Betty Threat, for Harper's Bazaar, New York, 1957.

Bassman’s fashion photographic work began to be re-appreciated in the 1990s.Presently in her 90s, she is now working with digital technology and abstract color photography to create a new series of work. Dior Hat on Barbara Mullen, Ritz, Paris, Harper´s Bazaar, 1949.

The most notable qualities about her photographic work are the high contrasts between light and dark, the graininess of the finished photos and the geometric placement and camera angles of the subjects. Bassman is now one of the last great woman photographers in the world of fashion. Lillian Bassman, Evelyn Tripp, 1954. Lillian Bassman. Fur Tailored Like Satin-Tailored Like Melton Barbara Mullen, Coat by Ben Khan, Harper's Bazaar New York, November 1954. Lillian Bassman. Golden Fox, Blue Fox Marilyn Ambrose, Boa by Frederica, Harper's Bazaar New York, 1954. Lillian Bassman, More Fashion Mileage per Dress Barbara Vaughn, Dress by Filcol, Harper's Bazaar New York, February 1956.

Lillian Bassman's experimental and romantic visions revolutionized fashion photography. In fact, Vanity Fair magazine singled her out as one of photography's "grand masters." Full of mystery, sensuality, and expressionistic glamour, Bassman's dramatic black and white photographs capture secret moments and dream memories. Anne Saint-Marie, New York, Chanel Advertising Campaign, 1958.

Her work is elegant, graceful and totally original. Bassman's unique images achieve their effect through darkroom manipulation, specifically by blurring and bleaching areas of the photographs. Touch of Dew, Lisa Fonssagrives, Harper's Bazaar, May 1961.

Bassman has also been honored internationally with a number of exhibitions and one-person shows worldwide, from New York, Milan, and Paris, to Spain, Germany, and London.

 

Lillian Bassman at her apartment in Manhattan. At 93 years old, Bassman continues to live and work in New York City. Photo by  Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Lillian Bassman & Paul Himmel: The first comprehensive retrospective of the artist couple. Hamburg, 26.11.09.

Paul Himmel (born 1914 as son of Ukrainian pilgrims; died in Feb. 2009 in New York) was one of the last great living photographers from the early era of American photography. He gained fame through his early exhibition "The Familiy of Man-, curated by Edward Steichen, which then turned around the world. In the mid-thirties, Lillian Bassman and Paul Himmel got married. Contrary to his wife, Paul Himmel increasingly lost interest in fashion photography. He began to develop his own projects, most of them radical experiments.

Via:http://farmanigallery.com/photographers/LILLIAN_BASSMAN.html

Images:http://www.staleywise.com/collection/bassman/bassman_exhibition.html#

Biography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Bassman

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Horst P. Horst

Horst P. Horst, most often known as just Horst, (August 14, 1906 – November 18, 1999) was a German American photographer best known for his photographs of women and fashion taken while working for Vogue magazine. Model is wearing a short mink jacket with tweed skirt, pearl choker, earrings, bracelet and ring by Vedura and leather handbag by Nettie Rosenstein, 1957. Horst P. Horst, Vogue Cover (Lisa Fonssagrives), New York, 1940

While in Paris, he befriended many people in the art community and attended many galleries. In 1930 he met Vogue photographer Baron George Hoyningen-Huene, a half-Baltic, half-American nobleman, and became his lover. Model is wearing a red cellophane-straw hat, high-collar white blouse with black bow at neck from Henri Bendel, 1943.

He traveled to England with him that winter. While there, they visited photographer Cecil Beaton, who was working for the British edition of Vogue. In 1931, Horst began his association with Vogue, publishing his first photograph in the French edition of Vogue in November of that year. Mrs Stanley Grafton Mortimer, Jr., is wearing a blue and black dress from Traina-Norell, 1946.

His first exhibition was hung in La Plume d'Or in Paris in 1932. It was reviewed by Janet Flanner in The New Yorker, and this review, which appeared after his exhibit was over, made Horst instantly famous. Horst made a portrait of Bette Davis the same year, the first in a series of celebrities he would photograph during his life. Model is wearing a pale grey tweed long coat with french cuffs, charcoal grey Heller worsted jersey turtleneck dress with belt and charcoal grey knit hat, all by B. H. Wragge.
Also wearing chamois colored gloves by Alexette Bacmo and gilt half melon earrings by Elsa Schiaparelli, 1953.

Within two years, he had photographed Noel Coward, Yvonne Printemps, Lisa Fonssagrives, Natasha Paley, Cole Porter, Elsa Schiaparelli, and others.
Horst rented an apartment in New York in 1937, and while residing there met Coco Chanel, whom Horst called "the queen of the whole thing". He would photograph her fashions for three decades. Sunny is wearing a long-bodied, slim lined navy blue wool coat with brass buttons with white silk scarf and pigskin handbag, 1955.

Horst is best known for his photographs of women and fashion, but is also recognized for his photographs of interior architecture, still lifes, especially ones including plants, and environmental portraits. One of the great iconic photos of the Twentieth-Century is "The Mainbocher Corset" with its erotically charged mystery, captured by Horst in Vogue’s Paris studio in 1939. Designers like Donna Karan continue to use the timeless beauty of "The Mainbocher Corset" as an inspiration for their outerwear collections today. His work frequently reflects his interest in surrealism and his regard of the ancient Greek ideal of physical beauty. Model is wearing a wide yellow felt scoop bonnet from John Frederic, 1943.

His method of work typically entailed careful preparation for the shoot, with the lighting and studio props (of which he used many) arranged in advance. His instructions to models are remembered as being brief and to the point. His published work uses lighting to pick out the subject; he frequently used four spotlights, often one of them pointing down from the ceiling. Only rarely do his photos include shadows falling on the background of the set. Horst rarely, if ever, used filters. While most of his work is in black & white, much of his color photography includes largely monochromatic settings to set off a colorful fashion. Model is wearing a black cashmere sweater, accented with diamond, ruby and emerald jewels and a close fitting black turban, 1954.

Horst's color photography did include documentation of society interior design, well noted in the volume Horst Interiors.
He photographed a number of interiors designed by Robert Denning and Vincent Fourcade of Denning & Fourcade and often visited their homes on Manhattan and Long Island. After making the photograph, Horst generally left it up to others to develop, print, crop, and edit his work. Two models in stride: Sunny Harnett on the left, is wearing a beige chiffon dress cut softly over the shoulder with long bodice and skirt cut on the bias.
The other model is wearing a brown chiffon dress twice banded around the bodice with brown satin, 1955.

One of his most famous portraits is of Marlene Dietrich, taken in 1942. She protested the lighting that he had selected and arranged, but he used it anyway. Dietrich liked the results and subsequently used a photo from the session in her own publicity.
In the 1960s, encouraged by Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, Horst began a series of photos illustrating the lifestyle of international high society. The articles were written by the photographer's longtime companion, Valentine Lawford, a former English diplomat. From this point until nearly the time of his death, Horst spent most of his time traveling and photographing. In the mid 1970s, he began working for House & Garden magazine as well as for Vogue. Model is wearing a wool suit and orange-and-yellow striped vest by Valentina, 1950.

He died at his home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, at 93 years of age. Mainbocher Corset, 1939

In the history of twentieth-century fashion and portrait photography, Horst's contribution figures as one of the most artistically significant and long lasting, spanning as it did the sixty years between 1931 and 1991. During this period, his name became legendary as a one-word photographic byline, and his photographs came to be seen as synonymous with the creation of images of elegance, style and rarefied glamour. Chanel Beauty , 1987

In his approach to portraiture, Horst set out to create a parallel aspirational universe in which his subjects became mysterious and alluring. Bruce Weber, one of many photographers influenced by Horst, artfully described his feelings about Horst's work in a 1992 television documentary: 'The elegance of his photographs took you to another place, very beautifully; the untouchable quallity of the people is really interesting as it gives you something of a distance ; it's like seeing somebody from another world ... and you wonder who that person is and you really want to know that person and really want to fall inlove with that person'. Horst P. Horst Chanel by Horst P. Horst, 1934 Chanel by Horst P. Horst, 1934 Chanel by Horst P. Horst, 1934

“I don’t think photography has anything remotely to do with the brain. It has to do with eye appeal.” - Horst P. Horst

Website: http://www.horstphorst.com/

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Daisy Fellowes

Daisy Fellowes photographed by Cecil Beaton. 1941

Daisy Fellowes (née Marguerite Séverine Philippine Decazes de Glücksbierg, (April 29, 1890 - December 13, 1962), was a celebrated 20th-century society figure, acclaimed beauty, minor novelist and poet, editor in chief of French Harper's Bazaar, fashion icon, and an heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune. She spent a great deal of time in Paris in the thirties, and became close friends with many of the Surrealist artists. Fellowes was bony, tall, pale and angular; one of the Surrealists once described her as "...an exquisite skeleton..." She was a friend and important patron of Elsa Schiaparelli, and wore many of her most daring creations (including the famous Skeleton Dress).

"A good fashion is a daring fashion, not a polite one."

Daisy Fellowes

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Sunny Hartnett

She was the absolute star model of the 50's. Avedon's 1954 picture of Harnett wearing a Grès gown at a casino was jet-set long before 007 ever spun a roulette wheel. ”Bond girl ante litteram” Supermodel and fashion icon Sunny Harnett poses with black Rolls for Vogue Magazine, 1953. Sunny Harnett and Dovima, another fifties fashion Icon who appeared regularly on the pages of Vogue and Harpers. Sunny Harnett holding cat wearing sleeveless dress, pleated from the hip in black and white geometric print. Photo by John Rawlings. Sunny Harnett, Turban and Evening Dress by Dior, Théâtre Marigny, Paris,1954.Gift of Mrs. Randolph Hearst. © 2010 The Richard Avedon Foundation Moma Nyc Large Sleeve (Sunny Harnett), New York, 1951. Photo by Irving Penn Sunny Harnett is wearing a golden green wool tweed suit. Sunny Harnett, in a 1954 photograph by Richard Avedon.

Sunny Hartnett,
She was born in New York in 1924, and given the name of Annemarie Margot Harnett. Sunny had a very successful modeling career throughout the 1950s and upon retiring, became an assistant to Eileen Ford of Ford Models.

She also appeared in the 1957  film,”Funny Face” together with Dovima and Suzy Parker.

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William Klein

Nina and Simone, Piazza di Spagna (Rome),1960. Fashion by Capucci, American Vogue, April, 1960 William Klein
American, 1928.

With his shots of the fifties and sixties, William Klein created an uncompromising rejection of the then prevailing rules of photography. His artistic career began in 1948 in Paris, where he trained as a painter. He discovered his passion for photography in the early fifties. Simone Daillencourt, 1962

Initially Klein utilized it as an abstract tool of expression, but he soon became fascinated with its possibilities for dealing with the real world. In 1954 Alexander Liberman, then art director at Vogue, hired the young photographer for his fashion magazine. This launched Klein's career as a fashion photographer, a journey marked by his ambivalent and ironic approach to the world of fashion. He did not want to continue with mundane fashion poses, but wanted to take "at last real pictures, eliminating taboos and cliches". Smoke and Veil, Paris (Vogue), 1958. © William Klein.

Klein worked with unconventional wide-angle and telephoto pictures, with unconventional lighting and flash effects and with intentional motion blurs. Although he worked for Vogue until 1966, he did not consider fashion photography to be his real calling but rather what he calls "serious photographs". New York, 1954

By that he meant uncompromising, unadorned documentaries about large cities like New York, Rome, Moscow, and Tokyo. Books about these cities enabled him to enjoy great successes. Around 1961 Klein gave up still photography with the exception of a few jobs for newspapers and advertising - in favor of motion pictures. His politically committed and unconventionally produced motion-picture contributions put him in the position of a maverick. Fashion by Jean Desses, French Vogue, April 1961

Only at the beginning of the eighties did Klein start to take pictures again. At this time his earlier shots were rediscovered and given recognition.

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Jean Patchett

American model, became a photographic icon during the 1950s and appeared on over 40 magazine covers. Jean Patchett In Long Fur Cape.

Her defining images were the ones in which Irving Penn captured her seated in a café chewing pensively on a string of pearls and the Erwin Blumenfeld Jan. 1, 1950, Vogue cover, which featured her perfectly penciled left eye, pouty red lips, and a trademark natural beauty mark. Jean Patchett, 1951 by John Rawlings. Jean Patchett modeling inexpensive white accessories in Life. Jean Patchett by Norman Parkinson for Vogue Paris, 1950. Jean Patchett by Milton H Greene Jean Patchett in Red Jean Patchett by Regina Relang, 1950

Famous Shot Jean Patchett and Ernest Hemingway, 1950.

Best Cover Jean Patchette’s 1950 Vogue cover, photographed by Erwin Blumenfeld.

One such photographer was Erwin Blumenfeld. With her as his muse he created one of the most memorable covers ever produced for Vogue in January 1950. Patchett (or 'Pancho' as she was nick-named) is presented in graphic profile; a sumptuous scarlet mouth, one perfect eye and Patchett's trade-mark beauty spot, the image is beautifully 'clean' and still contemporary over five decades later.

Best Shot Jean Patchett photo by Erwin Blumenfeld, 1950. Girl behind glass , New York, 1949 by Irving Penn.

Jean was '' a young American Goddess in Paris Couture.” Quote by Irving Penn .

Ms. Patchett was among a handful of photographic models who dominated that era, a sorority that included Dovima, Dorian Leigh, Suzy Parker, Evelyn Tripp and Lisa Fonssagrives.

She ended her modeling career in 1963.

Via: http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/6754551

Via:http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/864028/Jean-Patchett

Website: http://jeanpatchett.com/

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Book: Clifford Coffin: Photographs from Vogue, 1945 to 1955

American photographer Clifford Coffin (1913-1972) is considered by many who knew him as the greatest of Vogue's "lost" photographers - an artist far ahead of his time. His innovative and intriguing fashion photographs of the 1940s and 1950s for such renowned magazines as Glamour, Vogue and Jardin des Modes in New York, London and Paris challenged the standards of the day. Now, published to coincide with a retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery in London, comes the first extensive monograph of this artist's ingenious photographic work. Clifford Coffin: Photographs from Vogue 1945 to 1955 features a rare collection of over 100 full-color and duotone plates - including many images that were locked away in the library annex of British Vogue for over forty years. Suzy Parker, 1953

Comprehensive in its coverage, this book chronicles Coffin's incredible range of style, from his early romanticism and surrealism to the cool, contrived elegance that eventually characterized fashion photography in the 1950s. Unknown model, 1954

Also present are Coffin's magnificent portraits of leading figures in the literary, artistic and theatrical circles of the era, including a youthful Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Lucian Freud, Vivien Leigh, Richard Attenborough and Laurence Olivier, as well as his celebrated portraits of Christian Dior taken on the eve of the couturier's first collection, and Henri Matisse, shown late in life, working in bed on his paper cut-outs. Jean Patchett, 1951 Clifford Coffin, 1951 Clifford Coffin, Unknown Models, 1949 Evelyn Tripp / Photo by Clifford Coffin 1954

Many of his portraits feature famous people actually wearing the clothes of designers like Jean Despres, Schiaparelli, Fath, Dior, Balenciaga, Cartier, Lanvin and Molyneux. In addition to Coffin's photographs, editor Robin Muir's meticulous research finally reveals the story of this fascinating man, whose life up until now has remained a mystery. Unknown model in Dior day dress, 1948 Barbara Goalen, 1948 A cocoa coloured Milan straw sailor hat banded with grosgrain and a jacket of complimentary colours, 1950 Lady in a hat Mary Jane Russell, 195o Gray wool flannel suit with velvet trim, highlighted in red with a red carnation corsage, 1949 Vogue cover, 1948

Book Product Details:

Hardcover: 139 pages

Publisher: Stewart, Tabori, & Chang; First Edition edition (August 1997)

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Happy Weekend !

American Style, 1927.

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Mathias Klotz Germain: “ELEVEN WOMAN” House

Mathias Klotz Germain This house, was designed by native architect Mathias Klotz Germain.

Mathias Klotz Germain is a Chilean architect, born in Viña del Mar on 13 April 1965. Studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, where he graduated in 1991. Winner of the Borromini Prize of Architecture in 2001 for under 40 architects.

Mathias Klotz , together with Alejandro Aravena, are perhaps the most renowned Chilean architects of the early twenty first century, outside his native Chile. His work, elegant and deeply rooted in the Modernist tradition, has put him on the international spotlight. He is the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture of the Diego Portales University in Santiago de Chile.

Designed as a holiday home to accommodate a family with eleven daughters, the house is built on a 45 degree slope. “ELEVEN WOMAN” house is a vacation home at Beranda. It stands on a site sloping down to Cachagua beach on the Pacific, 140 kilometers north of Santiago, Chile.

Photographer: Cristobal Palma

Images Via: www.dezeen.com

Website: http://www.mathiasklotz.com/

Biography : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Klotz

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Julius Shulman: Man Behind the Camera

Julius Shulman (October 10, 1910 – July 15, 2009) was an American architectural photographer.

American photographer Julius Shulman's images of Californian architecture have burned themselves into the retina of the 20th century. A book on modern architecture without Julius Shulman is inconceivable. Some of his architectural photographs, like the iconic shots of Frank Lloyd Wright's or Pierre Koenig's remarkable structures, have been published countless times. The brilliance of buildings like those by Charles Eames, as well as those of his close friend, Richard Neutra, was first brought to light by Julius Shulman's photography.

The clarity of his work demanded that architectural photography had to be considered as an independent art form. Each Julius Shulman image unites perception and understanding for the buildings and their place in the landscape. The precise compositions reveal not just the architectural ideas behind a building's surface, but also the visions and hopes of an entire age. A sense of humanity is always present in his work, even when the human figure is absent from the actual photographs.

Shulman in his Hollywood Hills home.  Julius Shulman Singleton House Case Study House #22, Los Angeles, CA, 1960. Pierre Koenig, Architect.

“Visual Acoustics The Modernism of Julius Shulman.” A documentary directed by Eric Bricker narrated by Dustin Hoffman. Release Date : 9 October 2009 (USA) WINNER "Best Documentary" 2009 Palm Springs.

Biography by : http://www.artnet.com/artist/15507/julius-shulman.html

Website: http://www.juliusshulmanfilm.com/

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Frank Horvat

“Photography is the Art of not pushing the botton.”

Frank Horvat was born in 1928 in what was then Italy and is now Croatia. He studied art in Milan and a meeting in 1951 with Henri Cartier-Bresson decided his fate as a photojournalist. He traveled the world in the early 50s and sent his work back to Paris Match, Life and Realities among other magazines. In 1956 he settled in Paris and began to photograph fashion with a reportage style: real life situations, ambient lighting and 35mm cameras. Givenchy hat, 1958. Jardin des Modes (1957-85) Givenchy hat, 1958. Jardin des Modes (1957-85) Halles, 1957 by Frank Horvat. Jours de France (1959) Frank Horvat, Advertising (1958 - 89) Jardin des Modes (1957-85) Frank Horvat for Harper's Bazaar (1961-67) Frank Horvat for Harper's Bazaar (1961-67) Frank Horvat for Harper's Bazaar (1961-67) Frank Horvat for Vogue France (1964 - 86) Frank Horvat for Vogue France (1964 - 86) Frank Horvat for Harper's Bazaar (1961-67) Frank Horvat for Harper's Bazaar (1961-67) Frank Horvat for Harper's Bazaar (1961-67) Frank Horvat, Various (1959 - 88) Various (1959 - 88) Frank Horvat for British Vogue (1959-61) Frank Horvat for British Vogue (1959-61) Frank Horvat for British Vogue (1959-61) Frank Horvat for British Vogue (1959-61) Frank Horvat, Jardin des Modes (1957-85) Frank Horvat, Queen (1965 - 70) Frank Horvat for Glamour USA (1965 - 78)

During his long career, Frank Horvat has contributed to every major magazine and his work has been exhibited in Paris, London, Prague, Berlin and New York.

A question from the interview of Alexandra Bensaïd recorded in 1998:

A. Bensaïd
My last question is one that another interviewer might have asked in beginning: why did you become a photographer in the first place?

F. Horvat :
For several bad reasons... Like the advice of an older friend, when I was fourteen or fifteen, telling me that this was the best way of meeting girls (laughs). Another bad reason was that it seemed easier than writing or drawing - both of which I had tried without success... And of course there were some good reasons, which I may have felt, but of which I became aware only much later. I could sum them up by saying that taking a photograph is like responding to an appeal: as if a person, or a tree, or a situation was calling me, crying out to me "I wish to be made visible, and you are the one who can best do it""

Official Website : http://www.horvatland.com/index.html

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John Rawlings

John Rawlings (1912-1970) was a Condé Nast Publications fashion photographer from the 1930s through the 1960s. Rawlings left a significant body of work, including 200 Vogue magazine and Glamour magazine covers to his credit and 30,000 photos in archive, maintained by curator Kohle Yohannan. Fashion photographer John Rawlings relaxes with his wife in the sunroom of their summerhousen. Photo John Rawling. Photo John Rawlings Model in red Chair. The image appeared in the September 1, 1959, Vogue. Navy Lambskin Jacket, Vogue, 1953. John Rawling / Vogue, 1941- It was extremely rare for that days to see a woman in slacks…

Rawlings was in the elite circle of top Vogue photographers Irving Penn, Horst P. Horst, George Hoyningen-Huene, and George Platt Lynes. The photographer's recently rediscovered archive includes photographs of stage, screen, and society stars of the 1940s and 1950s, including Marlene Dietrich, Salvador Dali, Veronica Lake, Bridget Bate Tichenor and Montgomery Clift. John Rawlings Parking Garage 1952. Model and Lincoln Continental by John Rawlings, 1960. Strapless Givenchy Swimsuit photographed by John Rawlings - Vogue - July 1953. John Rawlings. John Rawlings. John Rawlings, Vogue cover image 1941. John Rawlings Suzy Parker, photo by John Rawlings for Vogue, Septemer 15th, 1952. John Rawlings for Vogue, October 1st, 1961. John Rawling: Revlon Advertisement, 1965. Vogue October 1st, 1948. John Rawlings, Flowered Hat, Vogue, March 15th, 1944. John Rawlings, October 1960. Vogue cover, January 1st, 1946. Suzy Parker in Christian Dior, Vogue, October 15th, 1953. Suzy Parker in Jacques Griffe, Vogue, October 15th, 1953. Mary Jane Russell, Vogue, December 1953. John Rawlings Circa 1955. "One Cigarette, Two Lights"; dress by Mildred Orrick, Vogue, April 15th, 1950. Meg Mundy in Cartier jewels, Vogue, October 15th, 1940. Hat by Magame Pauline, Vogue, The images of Vogue legend John Rawlings often capture a certain cinematic quality. September 1st, 1938. John Rawlings. John Rawlings, Wanted by Uncle Sam, Glamour, 1947. Gene Tierney, March 11, 1946. John Rawlings, 1965. Model Anne Saint-Marie in Maximillian fur, November 15, 1957. Sunny Harnett, November 15, 1952. Broad Flowered Hat.

Portraits Photographer Irving Penn in his American Field Service uniform. March 1, 1945. Byra Hemingway, wife of John Hemingway,1947. Actress Lauren Bacall wearing yellow bare-midriff suit with black halter from B.H. Wragge.1945.

Cover Vogue cover, April 15, 1948. Vogue cover, June 1st, 1947. Model Dorian Leigh wearing a pale pink cloche by Madame Reine and a plunge-necked rayon crepe dress from B.H.Wragge.

Book John Rawlings - 30 Years in Vogue -

"Rawlings was certainly the first major Conde Nast photographer to demonstrate a truly American eye ; John Rawlings's photography has a practical, no nonsense feeling . He focused his lens on the vibrant world surrounding him." writes Charles Dare Scheips Jr., former director of the Conde Nast Archives, in his introduction to Kohle Yohannan's book, John Rawlings: 30 Years in Vogue. "Rawlings brought a realistic visual style, presenting fashion as a force rather than a decoration." Vogue cover, 1957.

The introduction of American photographer John Rawlings to Vogue's visual team in 1936 was certainly one of Conde Nast's best strategic moves. At a time when opulence, pretentiousness, and theatrical lighting were prevalent in fashion photography - fueled by the European school led by the British Beaton, the German Horst, and the Russian Hoyningen-Huene - Nast and Vogue's editor in chief Edna Woolman Chase decided they needed a change of direction and placed their bets on a talented but unknown twenty-four-year Midwestener.

Biography via: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rawlings

All images via Conde Nast Store

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Happy Weekend

Point Cabrillo - Painting by Edward Gordon. Interiors space with architectural details in light reflection…

Website: http://www.gordongallery.com/

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Melvin Sokolsky and Simone D'Alliencourt

Bubble On the Siene, Paris 1963 by Melvin Sokolsky

The period between 1955 and 1970 has become widely recognized as a kind of golden age in American magazine culture. In these years the commercial imperative had failed to over-ride the arguably irrational urge to utilize mass-circulation periodicals as a platform for personal expression. Following a time of neglect or indifference, the legacy of many photographers, artists, and designers is again investigated and celebrated. One of the more unusual figures in this pantheon was:

Melvin Sokolsky. Melvin Sokolsky, Paris 1965

Profile:

Melvin Sokolsky was born and raised in Manhattan's Lower East Side during the lean years of the pre-war era. Here he witnessed the entire spectrum of the human condition played out across a tough and tight-knit community. This experience was countered by a universe of visual riches found in the museums and books he regularly devoured. Melvin Sokolsky, Paris 1965

Melvin spent his days framing and logging precise mental and emotional images long before he had a camera to capture them. At age ten he began taking pictures using a box camera, though he was frustrated by his inability to create prints that had the "nice pearly finish" of his father’s old photos. "It was then that I realized the importance of the emulsion of the day," he recalls. Never satisfied, always questioning, and fiercely creative, young Melvin Sokolsky began to live from one private epiphany to the next.

With no formal training, his photographic education came purely from instinct, desire, and careful observation. Upon learning that photographers could make $4000 for "shooting a box of Jell-O," Sokolsky was seized by visions of a previously unimaginable career path. "The idea of escaping from my tenement dwelling and living by my creative inspirations became a powerful motivator," he notes. He took up an all-consuming regimen of photographic experimentation with a singular focus and determination that have since become his trademark process. Melvin Sokolsky, Paris 1965

At twenty-one these efforts paid off when he was invited to join the photo staff of Harper's Bazaar by Henry Wolf, the magazine's visionary art director. Though he was learning on his feet, Sokolsky was rebellious by nature and would couple his street smarts with his deeply vivid imagination to challenge the aesthetic conventions of the advertising and editorial worlds. He was friendly but equally competitive with fellow star-photographers of his day, Art Kane and Richard Avedon. This tension contributed greatly to what is now considered the golden age of the American magazine.

The work that put Sokolsky on the map was his 1963 Bubble series in which impeccably dressed models float dreamily over urban land and waterscapes. "I’d have to credit Hieronymus Bosch for those images," he notes, "if you look at his painting The Garden of Earthly Delights you will come across a nude couple in a bubble. That image stayed with me from childhood." This and other wildly inspired fashion editorials caught the eye of many advertising creatives, and soon he was shooting much more than Jell-O. The Digital Journalist states that he was the most successful advertising photographer of the 1960s.

As most advertising work goes uncredited, Sokolsky became known primarily for his groundbreaking editorial work and celebrity portraiture. Drawing upon his fascination with Surrealist art (and encouraged to do so by a visit to his studio from Salvador Dalí), Sokolsky was fearless in upending all notions of scale, proportion, visual rationality, and the laws of physics. Not one to be pinned down to a single style, he was equally comfortable shooting elegant, minimal studies against white backdrops. Regardless of context, Sokolsky’s work always pops and provokes. "Really, I'm only interested in photography as a tool for exploring and visualizing psychological and emotional conditions," he says.

In the 1970s Sokolsky expanded his visual repertoire to film and, fittingly, he moved to Los Angeles. He became a prolific shooter of striking television commercials that bore all the innovation and grammar of his photographic work. He has continued to shoot fashion photography and other editorial assignments, and his work has moved towards an increasingly cinematic style. Sokolsky thinks in big questions that inspire a visceral visual narrative. One hopes that he will bring this skill to the big screen in the form of a feature film, for yet another chapter in his creative evolution.

Melvin Sokolsky is one of the great pioneers in the creation of visual imagery. Admired, awarded, and relentlessly copied, he remains steadfastly ahead of the curve and thoroughly ignited in his seventies.

His relatively brief but intense career as a photographer was simultaneously paradigmatic and evidence of how an individual signature could prevail in a commercial environment.

Simone D'Alliencourt She was a top model from 1956 through the sixties. Website: http://sokolsky.com/

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The Golden Age

The launch of Christian Dior's New Look in 1947 marked the beginning of a momentous decade in fashion history, one that Dior himself called the 'golden age'. Celebrating the end of war and the birth of a new era, it set a standard for dressmaking and high fashion that has rarely been surpassed.

In Paris, couture houses such as Balenciaga, Balmain and Fath attracted worldwide attention for elegance and glamour. London was renowned for formal state gowns by court dressmakers and impeccable tailoring by designers like Hardy Amies.

The production of couture was important to the prestige and economy of both France and Britain. While traditionally catering for wealthy private clients, the couture houses also sought new markets. As the decade progressed, they created perfumes, opened boutiques and licensed their designs to foreign manufacturers. By the late 1950s, the leading couture houses had become global brands.

Photography and illustration played a key role in how fashion was perceived and portrayed. In this post-war period, however, photography began to dominate. Using natural lighting, unexpected locations and dramatic poses, it introduced an air of modernity that fashion editors liked. It also made photographic models such as Suzy Parker and Barbara Goalen household names.

Bluetramontana Style