Lovely things

An excellent source of American cool, Flavorwire has this beautiful image featured, and other works in their "Best of Art Chicago".


Lillian Bassman, Fantasy on The Dance Floor, Barbara Mullen, 1949. Gelatin silver print, 24 x 20 inch. Courtesy Peter Fetterman Gallery, Santa Monica.

This image shows the model, Barbara Mullen, in a 1949 Christan Dior gown, of course.
The New Look silhouette is shown at its most exaggerated in this spiraling silk ruffled ballgown. Its hard to believe the war and rations had only finished four years before.

Lillian Bassman is one of many women I am discovering lately; trailblazers and more modest women of accomplishment whom I find inspiring. Lillain was born in 1917 and had a remarkable career in fashion, but she came to fame later in the 20th century when her work was "re-discovered".

Bassman's (predominently) black and white works show to me a world of fashion that is not so dominated by the male viewpoint. The fashion items are of course consistent with their respective periods, but I find her work conveys an altogether different tone to that imbued in the dominant male photographer's perspectives. The subjects are calm and in control, relaxed, even when active. There feels to me to be a liberation from the"capturing" and "being captured" paradigm that guides other fashion photographers.

Anyway, check them out at..Lillian Bassman on Flicker