Deichtorhallen

Lillian Bassman & Paul Himmel

27 Nov 2009 - 21 Feb 2010

Lillian Bassman und Paul Himmel vor ihrem Haus in New York, 2003 © Karin Kohlberg, 2003
LILLIAN BASSMAN & PAUL HIMMEL

November 27, 2009 – February 21, 2010

Deichtorhallen Hamburg will arrange the artist’s first comprehensive exhibition in Europe.

Lillian Bassman and Paul Himmel count among the masters of photography. The House of Photography of Deichtorhallen Hamburg prepares the first comprehensive retrospective of the artist couple. Besides the well-known photographs, published in “Vogue” and “Harper’s Bazaar”, yet unpublished photographs of the two artists will be exposed.

Today Lillian Bassman belongs to the last great woman photographers in the fashion world. In the 1940s and 1960s she worked as an art director for “Junior Bazaar” and later for “Harper’s Bazaar”, and promoted photographers, such as Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Louis Faurer and Arnold Newman.

Paul Himmel (born 1914 as son of Ukrainian pilgrims; died in Feb. 2009 in New York) was one of the last great living photographers from the early era of American photography. He gained fame through his early exhibition “The Familiy of Man”, curated by Edward Steichen, which then turned around the world. In the mid-thirties, Lillian Bassman and Paul Himmel got married. Contrary to his wife, Paul Himmel increasingly lost interest in fashion photography. He began to develop his own projects, most of them radical experiments.

Zitate
„Lillian Bassman ́s fashion photography is experiecing a revival.“
The New York Times, 10.11.2005

„Lillian Bassman first lady of fashion photography“
B&W Magazine for collectors of fine photography, N°43, 06.2006

„For fifty years, Lillian Bassman has turned fashion pictures into art that celebrates the beauty and elegance of woman in body and soul.“
Town and Country, 10.1997

„Von allen meinen Protegés ist Paul derjenige, der Bewegung am genialsten umsetzen kann.“ Alexey Brodovitch; zitiert nach: Brigitte Woman 01.05.2008

„For a Therapist, the return of a ritty, Freewheeling Past, like his wife, the fashion photographer Lillian Bassman, Paul Himmel isn ́t much interested in the past.“

The New York Times, 02.11.1999
 

Tags: Richard Avedon, Robert Frank