Friday 26 September 2014
Meeting Lillian Bassman
»I think you’ll fall in love with Lillian.« This is how Stephen, Lillian Bassman’s assistant, begins a letter to us before our meeting in New York. As it turns out, he’s right. To meet Lillian Bassman is to fall in love and we’re hardly the first ones. In every book and interview we’ve read, it’s obvious that Lillian is irresistible.
We visit Ms. Bassman in her combined home and studio on the Upper East Side. The building is a former carriage house and a black-and-white stone pattern covers up a hole in the floor. We learn that this is where they used to drop down hay to the horses in the old days. Now her son Eric lives on the ground floor, where Lillian and her husband Paul Himmel, who passed away in 2009, used to share a workspace. When we arrive she’s wearing a light blue man’s shirt with her bare feet up on a stool watching a World Cup match, England versus Algeria. Following a brief illness she now needs extra oxygen delivered through her nose via a plastic tube. In spite of the tube Lillian looks cool. It’s summer and her daughter Lizzie offers us iced coffee. We’re afraid that the noise from the fan will drown out the sound on our recording.
Over the past few years there has been a Lillian Bassman revival of sorts, and several books and photo exhibitions of her work have popped up around the world. She began photographing in the late 1940s, and for two decades her work appeared in almost every issue of Harper’s Bazaar, as well as in countless advertisements for high end brands. Her pictures capture the postwar feminine ideal, with long necks, sweeping skirts and narrow waists. It’s said that Carmel Snow, the legendary editor at Harper’s Bazaar, admired Lillian’s ability to make even the simplest piece of clothing seem glamorous. The women in her pictures are inaccessible in a way that’s very sexy; and even though they’re obviously posing, you get the feeling that they don’t know they’re being watched. They ooze integrity.
In the beginning of the 1970s, however, Lillian abruptly lost interest in fashion photography and turned to more personal art projects. She destroyed many of her negatives, but some she boxed up and deposited in an old unheated coal shed behind the house. She continued to shoot commercially and spent two years designing her own fashion line. 30 years later, an artist renting the downstairs studio stumbled upon the boxes while clearing out the shed and Lillian began revisiting her old work. It could be that Lillian’s great success as a photographer casts a shadow over her brief, yet important role within graphic design. In this book we would like to draw attention to that period.
At the end of the 1940s, as the art director at two of the most influential magazines of all time, Harper’s Bazaar and Junior Bazaar, she has a unique insight into the golden age of American magazine culture. The post war era was defined by its belief in the future, an optimistic and experimental climate that never ceases to appeal to art directors. Perhaps that fascination has reached its pinnacle today. After all, we live in a time when aesthetically, we are looking backwards rather than forwards. For years Junior Bazaar was solely a subsection within Harper’s Bazaar, a space dedicated to more youthful style tips and fashion. But from 1945–1948 it was an independent magazine. If we had been teenagers in the 1940s we would have bought every single issue. These days they’re not only hard to find, but also very expensive. When we lament this to writer Vince Aletti, famous for his enormous collection of fashion magazines, he replies: »I know. I’m the one who’s buying them.«
Though Alexey Brodovitch, Lillian’s teacher and mentor, is usually credited as the sole creator of Junior Bazaar, in fact it was Lillian who designed the magazine. Her life story reads like a movie and stretches across the entire 20th century. And because both Lillian and her husband were photographers, there are thousands of pictures from their lives. She describes her childhood as very liberal with a hard-working father and an independent mother clearly, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. She tells us how she and her older sister used to run around naked in the house and sleep on mattresses directly on the floor.
Lillian was just five years old when she met her future husband, Paul when he tried to drown her at the beach on Coney Island. Ten years later they became a couple and moved in together, while Lillian was still in high school. To us, her parents, who were emigrés from Russia and the Ukraine, seem like »real hippies«. Lillian corrects us: »No, they were bohemians.« Later, when we refer to her work as »punk «, she does it again »It was avant garde«.
When we leave the free-minded Lillian we are in an almost euphoric state. We walk along Lexington Avenue and dream about being a fly on the wall at the Bassman’s. Suddenly, the world feels like an open playground, ours for the taking.
Samira Bouabana & Angela Tillman Sperandio, 2010
From Hall of Femmes: Lillian Bassman
Editor: Ika Johannesson
Buy the book here.
Posted by: admin 21:00
Tags: Alexey Brodovitch, Hall of Femmes, Harper's Bazaar, Junior Bazaar, New York, Vince Aletti
Categories: Ika Johannesson, Lillian Bassman, Preface
Wednesday 11 December 2013
Årets julklappar
Nu ska ni få den enda lista ni behöver inför julen. Det är lite oklart om det är en inköpslista eller önskelista, både och förmodligen – det vet ju alla att man alltid hittar bäst presenter till sig själv. Det är lika bra vi säger det på en gång, den är väldigt partisk, ingenting du lika gärna kan slöjda själv, allt är kvalitet men inget är gratis!
1. Självklart vill vi att alla du känner ska läsa alla våra böcker och att väggen som är det första du ser när du slår upp ögonen på morgonen, hela tunnelbanevagnen på väg till jobbet, utrymmet bredvid kaffemaskinen på kontoret och varenda lägenhet du tjuvkikar in i på kvällarna alla ska vara tapetserade med Hall of Femmes affischer. I år gav vi ut tre nya böcker och lika många affischer, om Janet Froelich, Lella Vignelli och Tomoko Miho. Dessutom gjorde vi Bloggboken, där du som vill julevila skrollfingrarna kan läsa Hall of Femmes blogg i bokformat. Dessutom har Ruth Ansel formgivit en fin bok förra året och dom här fina anteckningsböckerna har Paula Scher gjort. För den som redan har allt Hall of Femmes-relaterat (vi älskar dig), och hellre vill blicka in i framtiden, föreslår vi att köpa biljetter till det här eventet vi ordnar på Arkitektur och Designcentrum, True Freedom can only be collective – a seminar celebrating Lina Bo Bardi.
2. Årets största konsthändelse i Stockholm – vid sidan av Barbara Krugers föreläsning i maj – var förmodligen Cindy Shermans utställning på Moderna museet. Årets konstkatalog är helt följdriktigt Stefania Malmstens katalog för utställningen, där litterära texter blandas med konstbilder. En annan av våra favoritkatalogformgivare Anders Wester har gjort den här om Charles Long.
3. Kören The Sweptaways 10 år som Stockholms mest lysande popkör har blivit till en kombinerad foto- och notbok (kan även köpas på Bondegatan 11 under kontorstid) med arr och nyskrivna texter av kören själv. När alla julaftonsvännerna gått hem, sätter du på den nya skivan och sjunger med, svajande framför granen.
4. För dig som känner, eller själv är, en fåfäng bebis – här är dom mjuka paketen från en av våra svenska favoritformgivare, Ida Wessel och hennes klädmärke för barn, Tuut kids.
5. För dig som känner någon som är – eller själv är – ålderslös. För utan att ha läst den ännu, föreställer vi oss att Bea Uusmas bok Expeditionen kan ges bort till vem som helst, i vilken ålder som helst. Formgivning av Lotta Kühlhorn är såklart den andra anledningen att köpa boken.
6. The Gentlewoman kan du köpa en prenumeration på här. Prenumerationer är för övrigt världens bästa present, spridd över året och alltid lika glad överraskning när ett nytt nummer kommer. Vi rekommenderar även Mattias Åkerbergs ambitiösa nyhetsbrev Please Copy Me. Och för fanzineälskaren: maila me@johanbjorkegren.se och beställ 44 sidor talang.
9. Till den som är mer teoretiskt lagd, köp Hello World eller 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design. Och för den som vill ha en bok som räcker i flera år och är så tung att man inte behöver ge bort ett gymkort, köp Svensk illustration – en visuell historia. Och såklart: In som ett lamm, ut som en tigrinna.
10. När du köpt alla dom här sakerna, föreslår vi att du slår in allt i rättesnöret.
Posted by: admin 16:46
Tags: Bea Uusma, Cindy Sherman, Ida Wessel, Lotta Kühlhorn, Please Copy Me, Rättviseförmedlingen, Sara Teleman, Steven Heller, The Sweptaways, Vanja Hermele
Categories: Alice Rawsthorn, Anders Wester, Böcker, Humor, Lella Vignelli, Lillian Bassman, Magazines, Massimo Vignelli, Paula Scher, Pengar, Penny Martin, Ruth Ansel, Stefania Malmsten, Tomoko Miho
Wednesday 19 December 2012
Lillian och Pauls samtliga verk
Den här retrospektiva utställningen har vi nu försökt tjata på både Fotografiska och Moderna Museet att visa. Vi tror att den är fantastisk! Kan inte ni försöka tjata in den också – vi behöver lobbyister!
Tuesday 6 November 2012
Lillian i Leipzig
Lillian Bassman och Paul Himmel-utställning i Leipzig öppnar snart.
Tuesday 14 February 2012
Om Lillian Bassman i Stil
Här kan man fortfarande lyssna på programmet där vi berättar om vårt möte med Lillian Bassman.
Tuesday 14 February 2012
Lillian Bassman 1917–2012
Monday 23 January 2012
Hungry Eyes
Sunday 8 January 2012
Helgjobb
Wednesday 23 November 2011
Bevis på indoktrinering är:
1. Man ropar ”HALLÅ!” till sitt barn, barnet svarar: ”HALLOFFEMMES!”.
Tuesday 11 October 2011
Lillian Bassmans höst
Under arbetet med vår bok om Lillian Bassman fanns enbart två källor som berörde Lillians tid som art director för två av världens mest inflytelserika tidningar.
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