The first two months of 2012 this year have seen the sad passing of two prolific American female photographers: Eve Arnold and this week, Lillian Bassman. Whilst Arnold straddled the fields of portraiture and documentative photography, Bassman's
The first two months of 2012 this year have seen the sad passing of two prolific American female photographers, Eve Arnold and this week, Lillian Bassman. Whilst Arnold straddled the fields of celebrity portraiture and documentative photography, Bassman's focus was fashion for most of her lifetime, shooting iconic grainy black and white images for Harper's Bazaar. She passed away on Monday, aged 94.
Born to Russian Jewish immigrants, Bassman grew up in Brooklyn and enrolled at the Textile High School in Manhattan with Alexey Brodovitch. It was here she began a relationship with her husband, the late photographer Paul Himmel, and they would spend time together at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, looking at the work of great painters. Bassman worked as a painter and graphic designer before moving into fashion photography under the guidance of art director Brodovitch in the 40s, shooting for Junior Bazaar and Harper's Bazaar until the 60s.
These painterly images would become Bassman's most significant works, their graphic, elegant aesthetic perfect for showing the fashions of the time. She was one of the few female photographers working in the industry in an era dominated by Richard Avedon and Irving Penn. Avedon was particularly supportive of his peer, describing her style as making "visible that heartbreaking invisible place between the appearance and the disappearance of things".
"Avedon was particularly supportive of his peer, describing her style as making "visible that heartbreaking invisible place between the appearance and the disappearance of things""
In the 70s Bassman became uninspired by the fashion and the new breed of supermodels: "They were becoming superstars. They were not my kind of models. They were dictating rather than taking direction", she told The New York Times. She abandoned her fashion photography – quite literally – throwing away 40 years of negatives and prints, and turned her attention to still lives and nudes.
Over 20 years later, her friend, the painter Helen Frankenthaler, who had been renting Basmman's studio, discovered a bag of negatives. Bassman, who had always been drawn to the manipulation of images, began using digital techniques to reinvent her old photographs. She continued to work until her death.
Lillian Bassman was born in June 15, 1917 and passed away at her Manhattan home on February 13, 2012.
