Swiss-born American painter Pegeen Vail Guggenheim (1925 – 1967) via
Monthly Archives: August 2016
Marvelous Portraits by Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston (1886 – 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called:
“one of the most innovative and influential American photographers…” and “one of the masters of 20th century photography.”
Over the course of his 40-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes and even whimsical parodies. It is said that he developed a:
“quintessentially American, and specially Californian, approach to modern photography”
because of his focus on the people and places of the American West. In 1937 Weston was the first photographer to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship, and over the next two years he produced nearly 1,400 negatives using his 8 × 10 view camera. Some of his most famous photographs were taken of the trees and rocks at Point Lobos, California, near where he lived for many years.
Weston was born in Chicago and moved to California when he was 21. He knew he wanted to be a photographer from an early age, and initially his work was typical of the soft focus pictorialism that was popular at the time. Within a few years, however, he abandoned that style and went on to be one of the foremost champions of highly detailed photographic images.
In 1947 he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and he stopped photographing soon thereafter. He spent the remaining ten years of his life overseeing the printing of more than 1,000 of his most famous images.
Edward Weston, Portrait of Ruth St. Denis, 1916 via
Edward Weston, Unidentified Woman, 1920 via
Tina Modotti, Glendale. Photograph by Edward Weston, 1921 via
Edward Weston. Frida Kahlo, 1930 via
Xenia Kashevaroff photographed by Edward Weston in 1931. This portrait is now in the collection of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art via
Edward Weston, Charis Wilson, 1941 The Lane Collection
Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston via
Amazing Surreal Photomontages by Grete Stern II
Grete Stern (1904–99) began taking private classes with Walter Peterhans―soon to become head of photography at the Bauhaus―in Berlin in 1927. Stern is best known as half of Foto Ringl + Pit, the innovative advertising and design studio she founded in Berlin in 1929 with her fellow Bauhaus alumna Ellen Auerbach.
In 1932 Stern met fellow photographer Horacio Coppola at the Bauhaus. In 1933 they emigrated to London where they married. Two years later in 1935 they settled in Coppola’s native Argentina. Two months after arriving they presented what the magazine Sur called
“the first serious exhibition of photographic art in Buenos Aires”
The exhibition comprised work produced in Germany and London. For a while Stern and Coppola tried operating a studio in Buenos Aires. It didn´t work out and the couple divorced in 1943. After a brief return to England, Stern settled in Argentina to raise a family, her daughter Silvia and her son Andrés.
Among Stern’s most significant accomplishments are her Dreams (Sueños). In 1948 Stern started illustrating women´s dreams for a women’s magazine column titled “El psicoanálisis le ayudará” (“Psychoanalysis will help you”). Over the course of three years Stern created 140 witty photomontages, where she portrayed women’s oppression and submission in Argentine society with sarcastic and surreal images. The photomontage was an ideal way for Stern to express her ideas about the dominant values.
She became a citizen of Argentina in 1958.
Grete Stern, Dream No. 43: Untitled, 1949 via
Ringl + Pit, Hat and Gloves, 1930 via
Grete Stern, Dream via
Grete Stern, Dream No. 20: Perspective via
Grete Stern, Dream No. 46: Estrangement via
Grete Stern, Dream No. 44: The Accused via
Grete Stern, Dream No. 13: Consent via
Grete Stern, Dream No. 41: The Phone Call via
Grete Stern, Dream via
Amazing Vintage Surreal Glamour by photographer Angus McBean
Angus McBean (8 June 1904 – 9 June 1990) was a Welsh photographer, set designer and cult figure associated with surrealism.
Two figures have prevented McBean from gaining more fame: Cecil Beaton (thanks to his lavish lifestyle and work for Vogue and the British Royal Family); and David Bailey, who much later (1960s) was close to Cecil Beaton both personally and in terms of style.
McBean did not enjoy this level of fame either in his life or after death, even though he was arguably the better technically and artistically.
Additionally McBean’s focus on the world of theatre (particularly London’s West End) did not give him international recognition.
In 2007, seven original colour transparencies (slides) of his photographs for the Beatles album cover Please Please Me by McBean were accidentally thrown in the bin at the headquarters of EMI.
Marlene Dietrich, “No Highway in the Sky” by Angus Mcbean Pinewood Studios, 1951 via
Audrey Hepburn by Angus Mcbean via
Vivien Leigh as Aurora by Angus McBean, 1938 via
Hermione Baddeley by Angus McBean, 1938 Gelatin via
Marika Rivera by Angus Mcbean via
Dorothy Dickson by Angus Mcbean, 1938 via fotographiaonline.com via
Beatrice Lillie by Angus McBean, 1940s via
Beautiful Vintage Photos From “Shocking – The Art & Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli”
The now scarce and out of print book “Shocking Schiaparelli” features beautiful images by the surrealist inspired fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli – one of the most influential designers of the 1930s & 1940s.
Photo from “Shocking – The Art & Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli” via
Photo from “Shocking – The Art & Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli” via
Photo from “Shocking – The Art & Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli” via
Photo from “Shocking – The Art & Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli” via
Amazing Vintage Photos of Fashion’s First Supermodel Lisa Fonssagrives
Swedish fashion model Lisa Fonssagrives (1911 – 1992) is widely credited as the world´s first supermodel. She was born Lisa Birgitta Bernstone and was raised in Uddevalla.
She went to Mary Wigman’s school in Berlin and studied art and dance. After returning to Sweden, she opened a dance school. She moved from Sweden to Paris to train for ballet and worked as a private dance teacher with Photographer Fernand Fonssagrives, which then led to a modeling career.
She married Fonssagrives in 1935; they divorced and she later married fashion photographer, Irving Penn, in 1950.
The Elton John photography collection auction held by Christie’s on October 15, 2004 sold a 1950 Irving Penn photograph of his wife, Lisa Fonssagrives, for $57,360.
VOGUE Cover, Lisa Fonssagrives by Horst P. Horst, 1940 via
Lisa Fonssagrives by Irving Penn, 1949
Lisa Fonssagrives by Lillian Bassman via
Lisa Fonssagrives by Irving Penn via
Lisa Fonssagrives, 1940’s via
Lisa Fonssagrives on the Eiffel Tower by Erwin Blumenfeld, Vogue, 1939 via
Lisa Fonssagrives Le Modele by Fernand Fonssagrives, 1942 via
FROM THE BYGONE 
