Lingerie

By Lillian Bassman

Stunning images of women in intimate apparel from the artist heralded as “among the most important fashion photographers of the twentieth century” (The New York Times).
 
Through the 1950s and the early 1960s, working with that era’s 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.
 
“For more than half a century, Lillian Bassman’s lingerie-themed photographs have seduced the viewer, with their stark contrast, stunningly graceful figure lines, and vivid texture.” —Vanity Fair

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781613123256

Book preview

IN 1951, PHOTOGRAPHER LILLIAN BASSMAN described her sensibility to a magazine writer: I’m completely tied up with softness, fragility, and the personal problems of a feminine world. This lifelong passion has lent her work its particular esthetic and psychological power. As soon as she became a fashion photographer in the late 1940s, she began to make images of women in intimate settings and quickly established herself as a specialist in lingerie—women’s underwear and nightclothes. As viewers have since observed, this body of work rises above its commercial roots to portray a private realm where women appear to be effortlessly self-possessed. Speaking of Bassman’s lingerie work in the New York Times, Ginia Bellafante pointed out that the photographs seemed like visual entries in the personal journals of the women photographed.

LILLIAN BASSMAN: LINGERIE is a collection of photographs spanning sixty years that expresses a consistent and penetrating artistic vision, invoking associations with achievements in literature and film.