{"id":432393,"date":"2026-05-04T21:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T21:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/432393\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T21:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T21:38:19","slug":"lillian-bassman-the-avant-garde-photographer-who-transformed-harpers-bazaar-finally-gets-her-due","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/432393\/","title":{"rendered":"Lillian Bassman\u2014the Avant-Garde Photographer Who Transformed Harper\u2019s Bazaar\u2014Finally Gets Her Due"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Estimated5 min read<\/p>\n

The early 20th century marked a turning point for the print magazine. In Europe, Constructivists and Bauhaus artists were leading the charge, introducing a media revolution where the traditional boundaries of graphic design were shattered in favor of bold and unusual spreads. Imagery and words literally broke borders, making the page a canvas of possibilities.<\/p>\n

Hoping to inject the dynamism and innovation of European publications into American magazines, Russian-\u00e9migr\u00e9 Alexey Brodovitch led a revolution of his own while serving as the art director of Harper\u2019s Bazaar from 1934\u20131958. Working alongside editor-in-chief Carmel Snow and legendary editor Diana Vreeland, Brodovitch ignited an aesthetic transformation at the magazine, which embraced avant-garde image-makers and talents, such as Lillian Bassman, who was just 24 when she accepted a design job there. \u201cThere is a sense of levity and freedom as you flip through the pages of Harper\u2019s Bazaar during the late \u201930s, early \u201940s,\u201d says Virginia McBride, Assistant Curator in the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. \u201cThe text and the pictures are liberated from these strict formulas and blocks, and they start to come to life. There\u2019s a great deal of kineticism and synthesis, and at times it feels almost like the stills of a film that unfold as you turn the pages.\u201d<\/p>\n

On view through July 26, Lillian Bassman: Bazaar and Beyond <\/a>is McBride\u2019s latest curatorial endeavor, which examines Bassman\u2019s immense creative legacy at Harper\u2019s Bazaar, Junior Bazaar (the magazine\u2019s little-sister spinoff), and as an independent photographer whose darkroom manipulations still feel radical today. Produced in close collaboration with Bassman\u2019s children, Lizzie and Eric Himmel, the exhibition was made possible thanks to a transformative gift of 70 works from the artist\u2019s estate. The show represents a homecoming for Bassman, who once claimed she and her husband, the photographer Paul Himmel, \u201cwere only interested in getting our education from The Met. That\u2019s where I immersed myself in fashion.\u201d Bassman also staged shoots in its hallowed galleries.<\/p>\n

\"CoverCourtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/p>\n

Junior Bazaar, December 1945. Design by Lillian Bassman (American, 1917\u20132012) and Alexey Brodovitch (American (born former Russian Empire, now Belarus),1898\u20131971), featuring photography by Leslie Gill (American, 1908\u20131958). Collection of Vince Aletti. Courtesy of Harper\u2019s BAZAAR\/Hearst Magazine Media, Inc.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey spoke time and time again about the way visiting the museum trained their eyes as photographers, and how the museum\u2019s presentation of the whole history of art shaped their sense of what photography could do,\u201d says McBride of the couple\u2019s \u201clifelong love\u201d of the museum. The curator notes Bassman was especially fond of the European Paintings galleries and El Greco\u2019s works. \u201cIn general, Bassman was most drawn to the painterly treatment of fabric. She wanted to attend to these details as closely in her photography as her predecessors had in painting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conveniently located down the hall from the Met\u2019s Raphael blockbuster<\/a> (a kismet placement when considering the photographer\u2019s reverence for the Old Masters), Bassman\u2019s exhibition is small in comparison but mighty in its own right. Born in 1917 and raised in the Bronx, Bassman always led an unconventional existence, whether it was designing her own clothing, working as a nude model for the Art Students League, assisting on murals for the Works Progress Administration, or simply aspiring to be an illustrator. In 1940, her portfolio earned her a spot in Brodovitch\u2019s design course at the New School for Social Research, followed by an unpaid apprenticeship at Harper\u2019s Bazaar. Over the next two decades she\u2019d work her way up to art director, where she became synonymous with idiosyncratic spreads, lively imagery, and unusual, colorful graphic treatments.<\/p>\n

\"MagazineCourtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/p>\n

Lillian Bassman (American, 1917\u20132012)Harper\u2019s Bazaar cover maquette, 1949. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Lizzie and EricHimmel, 2025 \u00a9 Estate of Lillian Bassman<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause Bassman was constantly thinking about how the images would play with the other components of the magazine, the photograph itself was really a starting point for her, rather than the end-all-be-all. \u201cShe took things into the darkroom and continued to rework the picture and manipulate it,\u201d says McBride, who made it a priority in the exhibition to showcase spreads alongside the original images in order to illustrate Bassman\u2019s marked intentionality, editorial savvy and daring photographic experimentation.<\/p>\n

Making images increasingly abstract, thanks to tissues, brushes, bleach, and more darkroom distortions, Bassman often walked the line between artistic expression and satisfying the magazine\u2019s commercial needs. \u201cShe believed to make truly inventive pictures, one needs to risk potentially disappointing the advertisers or the editors,\u201d says McBride. The exhibition\u2019s introductory wall text begins with a provocation: \u201cCan fashion photography be dangerous?\u201d reflecting the mixed feedback Bassman received. In 1950, when Bassman submitted The Yellow Smocked Coat and Yellow Linen Etched in Black, both prints whose subjects had been reduced to mere silhouettes, Brodovitch called them \u201cdangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ACourtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/p>\n

Lillian Bassman: Bazaar and Beyond Lillian Bassman (American, 1917\u20132012)Variant of The Wonders of Water 1959 Platinum print, ca. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Lizzie and EricHimmel, 2025 \u00a9 Estate of Lillian Bassman<\/p>\n

\u201cOne imagines that this is a compliment as much as a warning coming from Brodovitch because he relished bold and creative visual gestures and had encouraged her to pursue this kind of work on her own,\u201d says McBride. \u201cI particularly like this idea that the stakes, even in the world of fashion, can be very high. Brodovitch had seen firsthand how the visual experiments of these creative artists abroad had helped to foment social transformation, and so one wonders what the possibilities are, even in the pages of a fashion magazine, to change aesthetic norms. Lillian\u2019s work does that at every turn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Often Bassman\u2019s work appeared in the back of the magazine, or she was skipped when assigning the most glamorous couture pieces to photograph\u2014a reverse compliment of sorts. \u201cShe had a reputation among her peers for being able to make almost anything look good in front of the camera, and so consequently we see her photographing some of the stranger and less covetable garments,\u201d says McBride. Of note are Bassman\u2019s entrancing images of lingerie, where the models are strategically blurred, rendering the image more about figure, form, and gesture.<\/p>\n

As co-art director of Junior Bazaar (a title she formally shared with Brodovitch) from 1945\u20131948, Bassman\u2019s creative freedom was expressed with fewer restrictions. After the conclusion of the Second World War, there were less obligations to advertisers and designers, as the fashion industry was recalibrating. The exhibition includes a tear sheet of the inaugural Junior Bazaar cover in 1945, which features a photograph by a young Richard Avedon, Bassman\u2019s close friend and collaborator. This also marked Avedon\u2019s first-ever cover shot.<\/p>\n

\"FashionCourtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/p>\n

Lillian Bassman (American, 1917\u20132012)Summer Supplements: Daytime Editions, 1959 Gelatin silver print. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Lizzie and EricHimmel, 2025\u00a9 Estate of Lillian Bassman<\/p>\n

Avedon was one of many emerging talents that Bassman supported, and in turn, who encouraged Bassman to pursue a career as an independent photographer, which she did after quitting Junior Bazaar in 1948 (when sales flatlined, a new editor was hired, prompting her frustration). She soon secured her own commercial accounts, including commissions for Harper\u2019s Bazaar. In the exhibition, a series of romantic photographs capturing the spring collections in Paris in 1949 features the characteristic elegance and atmospheric blur that would become Bassman\u2019s calling card. Also not to miss is a telegram Avedon wrote to Bassman responding to this series and praising her as his \u201cfavorite photographer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of what makes Bassman\u2019s career so fascinating is her resurgence as a photographer during the 1990s. After she stepped away from the field during the late 1960s, her friend\u2014the art historian Martin Harrison\u2014suggested she revisit her earlier material, which he stumbled upon while visiting her home. Bassman recovered her negatives and reprinted them, amplifying the abstraction to her heart\u2019s content. Untethered to commercial entities, Bassman achieved new freedom and fame by pushing her darkroom experiments further while also teaching herself Photoshop to digitally manipulate images.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the world of photography, new technology presents so many possibilities, yet sometimes it can also seem like a threat to what has come before,\u201d says McBride. \u201cWe are currently on the verge of so many technological revolutions, it\u2019s a good reminder that someone like Lillian, in her 90s, was adopting these new approaches with enthusiasm and a spirit of invention.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5 min read The early 20th century marked a turning point for the print magazine. In Europe, Constructivists…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,4959,188814,308,1107,93,61,60,184510,1106,141362,188813],"class_list":["post-432393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-content-type-feature","tag-contentid-343397c8-be62-49e5-b625-ff0b7a4d5484","tag-design","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-read_time-6","tag-shorttitle-inside-the-lillian-bassman-exhibit-at-the-met"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}