Lillian Bassman: Lingerie

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• Publisher: Abrams
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781613123256
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Photography

Through the 1950s and the early 1960s, working with that eras supermodels, fashion photographer Lillian Bassman created the quintessential modern feminine image of women in their lingerie. As Ginia Bellafante put it in the New York Times recently, In place of heavyset women constraining themselves in what was essentially equipment, Ms. Bassman deployed immeasurably lithe models, conveying a world in which women seemed to linger in the pleasures of their own sensuality. Fifty years later, these images have lost none of their allure, and the enormous cultural impact of the TV show Mad Men has given them new currency.

“Whatever the subject, Lillian Bassman stamps each of her pictures with her unmistakable, intense femininity. Almost the archetype for junior-size models, she is tiny, and given to wearing little bodices and full skirts, all designed by herself.” Thus, Carmel Snow introduced HARPER’S BAZAAR’s newest photographer to the magazine’s readership in the Editor’s Guest Book section of the October 1948 issue. A year later, on the occasion of her first assignment for SEVENTEEN, the magazine’s They Worked with Us This Month feature described Bassman in similar terms: “She is fast becoming a specialist in ‘feminine photography.’ Most of her pictures are of lingerie, women dressing, undressing, combing their hair.” By 1951, Bassman was well-enough established as a fashion and beauty photographer to merit a perceptive feature in POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY, where the writer gave her the last word: “I’m completely tied up with softness, fragility, and the personal problems of a feminine world.” Fifty-seven years later, she told Judith Thurman, for a Talk of the Town piece in the NEW YORKER, “I think my contribution … has been to photograph fashion with a woman’s eye for a woman’s intimate feelings.”

She was an inveterate observer of women and their ways. This came out, for example, in a euphoric letter that she wrote at the end of her first day in Paris (August 19, 1946): “It was too late to get served at the hotel so I decided to walk down the Avenue. I spotted my corner carefully and then proceeded. It’s strange how similar and how different French girls are [to American girls]. In the majority, they look like old victory girls of B’way. High pompadours, long hair over their shoulders, skirt at above knee length and heavy dmpy high heeled shoes. It wasn’t too light and I was shy about staring too much, so all I got were quick outlines.” Bassman, who was even then hatching her escape from art direction into the freer fields of photography, soon lost her shyness about staring. A few days later, she watched the prostitutes make easy pickings of American GIs: “There’s no denying a French girl once she spots you alone, it’s done on the streets, in doorways, anywheres. There’s a special drape to the way her body clings to a man and she takes the initiative on all occasions.”

Bassman solved a problem for Snow and her art director, Alexey Brodovitch. Their magazine had scraped through the war years by dint of wit and intelligence— fashion was quiescent and advertising was flat. It was clea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Bassman’s Lingerie: Essay by Eric Himmel
• Plates
• Acknowledgments
• Copyright