Lillian Bassman - Fashion for Cross-Fertilization

19/6/2014

The Crowning of Chic
Lillian Bassman's vision of Phillip Treacy's designs
Vogue Cover, Germany. 1990s

As artists we draw inspiration from a myriad of sources, one of which is work from other creative fields. The work of fashion photographer, Lillian Bassman is ripe for creative sustenance.

Those of you who are familiar with my Fashion as Fantasy and Whimsical Heads Pinterest boards, know that I sometimes look for cross-fertilisation amongst fashion designers and fashion shoots. Having recently discovered the sultry black and white shots of Lillian Bassman, I confess I couldn't stop pinning.

Same Sex Art

Bassman, the daughter of bohemian jewish emigrés from Russia and the Ukraine, grew up in New York and had a very successful career as a fashion and commercial photographer for Harper's Bazaar and other periodicals during the 40's and 50's. Her particular strength was photographing women, a subject that fascinated her. The models, for once freed from the sexual charge so prevalent in the shoots done by male photographers, were able to be more relaxed and open with Bassman.

Night Bloom by Lillian Bassman
Gelatin silver print
24 x 20 in
(Hat by Christian Lacroix Haute Couture, OlgaPantushenkova, Paris)
The New York Times Magazine,
March 31,1996

Diffused background on photo
by Lillian Bassman
Source, date and specifications not found

Model Carmen, early 1950s shot by Lillian Bassman
Strong contrast of light and dark achieved by bleaching using potassium cyanide and 'burning' via long exposure to light.

Darkroom Experimentation

Although some of Bassman's effects were created during the actual shoot where she would blow smoke on the lens, the darkroom was a place of unfettered experimentation. Here she burned and bleached her images.

“I have no idea where my inspiration came from, but I had the desire to change the hard-edged dimensions of an image. I used to take tissue paper and a spatula and work on it, so the periphery of the image was softened. I didn't, still don't, see colour. I see black and white...”
From: New York Times journalist Tim Teeman's interview with Bassman - Download PDF

By the 60s, Bassman grew disillusioned with the stylised fashion shoots withdrew from the world of fashion photography to pursue other projects.

Reinterpreting Previous Work

In the early 90s during a visit to her home, Martin Harrison, a photo-historian and fan of Bassman's work, found some bags of old negatives from her 50's fashion work. Bassman was intrigued by her old contact sheets and began to print and rework the images she had loved, but the editors had not.

She reworked the images using a combination of darkroom and Photoshop techniques. With no editors to answer to, she was finally able to bring forth the vision she had held all along of how she wanted the photographs to be.

These reinterpretations brought her back into the limelight and she returned to photograph the Paris collections for the New York Times magazine in 1996, and worked for Vogue until 2004.

Bassman's Photos as Creative Inspiration

Even for artists in other disciplines, Bassman's photos are inspiring: The bravery of her experimentation, the incredible levels of contrast she achieved as well as those dreamy, diffused edges so reminiscent of charcoal - any or all might provide jumping off points for our own work.

More on the Benefits of Reinterpreting Our Work

Read: Salvador Dalí, Time and Revisiting Our Art

Footnote
While this online exhibition shows when some of Bassman's most famous images were shot, I couldn't find documentation which clearly indicated which photographs were retouched later and which are in their original state - so we are left to speculate. Perhaps that's just part of the ambience of mystery that Bassman was so good at creating.