Femininity, Salvaged

[johnastovall]

"In the early 1970s Lillian Bassman, among the most important fashion photographers of the 20th century, made the decision to dispose of her career, quite literally. Artists do this all the time without the intent — giving themselves over to excess, retreating to ashrams — but Ms. Bassman’s approach was aggressive and determined. Disillusioned by the costuming of the late 1960s, she had had enough of fashion and expressed her disdain by destroying decades’ worth of negatives and placing others in a trash bag in the coal room of her Upper East Side carriage house. Her era of furtive eroticism was over, and there was no point in scrapbooking it...."

Full story with images...

 

[Ranger 9]

Won't have time to read this until I get home from work, but it sounds interesting.

There's already a fascinating parallel there to the career of one of my fave photographers, Louise Dahl-Wolfe -- another one of the most important fashion photographers of the 20th century. Supposedly, after the Second World War, she got tired of Carmel Snow looking over her shoulder and telling her how to do the shots, and just stopped her entire career all at once: "Like closing up a trunk," she said.

Fortunately, she didn't destroy her work...

 

[nei1]

Interesting couple

 

[Oxide Blu]

Both photographers (Lillian Bassman and Louise Dahl-Wolfe) produced work that is a joy to look at in today's digital overload.

Thanks for sharing, you guys! :thumbup:

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

What an amazing individual!

 

[popum]

Interestingly, I saw the exhibit at the gallery in Connecticut yesterday. I was disappointed that the quality of the prints didn't match what I saw in the slide show from the NYT article. The slide show had better tonality than the prints. Unfortunate.

Mike