philippe halsmanastonish me!

PRESTEL MUNICH LONDON NEW YORK

philippe halsmanastonish me!

Sam Stourdze & Anne Lacoste

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC OBJECT IN ALL ITS STATES

Throughout his long career, Philippe Halsman was a passionate promoter of photography. When it was threatened by the advent of a new mass medium – television – he rose to the challenge and used his imagination to make photography a force to be reckoned with in the field of entertainment. Whenever he spoke in public – which he did frequently, in interviews, lectures, classes and publications – Halsman always championed the untapped creative potential of photography. He loved to recount the story of Jean Cocteau’s famous meeting with Sergei Diaghilev, at which the young Cocteau asked what he needed to do to be able to work with him, and the founder of the Ballets Russes replied: ‘Astonish me!’ The words became a catchphrase that was widely used, notably by Alexey Brodovitch, art director of Harper’s Bazaar magazine and an instructor at the Design Laboratory. To this day it encapsulates the innovative spirit in post-war photography that Halsman among others did so much to promote.

FOREWORD

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With Diaghilev’s imperative firmly in mind, Halsman threw himself into photographing the most improbable scenes and set-ups. His technical skill allowed him to explore the medium’s creative potential to the full. His experimentation reached its height in his collaboration with Salvador Dalí, which saw Dalí’s ideas given photographic form.Thanks to the generosity of the Halsman family, who have given us unlimited access to their archives, we have been able to piece together Halsman’s creative career from its start in Paris all the way to his days in New York. We have revisited his work as a whole and, alongside his iconic photographs, have assembled a collection of attempts, try-outs, mock-ups, collages and published pieces that clearly demonstrate his creativity and never-ending experimentation with every aspect of the photographic image. By bringing his work together as a whole for the first time, this exhibition gives us a hitherto unseen view behind the scenes, a unique opportunity to reconstruct his practice and finally to celebrate the photographic object in its own right.

Sam Stourdzé

contentsforeword By Sam Stourdze - page 6

1- paris in the 1930s - page 11

focus - la PLeÉIADE gallery By anne LacoSte - page 46

the creative process By anne LacoSte - page 60

2- portraits - page 87

focus - marilyn monroe By anne LacoSte- page 112

a talent for the theatrical By anne LacoSte - page 142

3- mises en sceène - page 153

focus - jumpology By anne LacoSte - page 188

Halsman / Dali attraction By marc aufraiSe - page 210

4- halsman/dALI - page 229

focus - dali’s mustache By anne LacoSte - page 268

extracts and recollections from the halsman archive By the haLSman famiLy - page 294

chronology By camiLLe aveLLan & Lydia dorner - page 306

Bibliography - page 312

list of illustrations - page 314

acknowledgements & Credits - page 318

focus

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Claude Delacroix, 1931.

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Alain Terrane and actress, 1939.Claude Simon, circa 1937.

Man smoking a pipe, 1932.Micheline Levy, 1938.

following pages: Women from Yemen, 1936.

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Ylla (Camilla Koffler), 1935.

Génica Athanasiou, 1934. Photo of a piece of jewellery for Vogue magazine, circa 1934.

following pages: Mises en scène with actor Fernand Ledoux, 1931-40.

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Experimental portrait of a woman, 1931-40.Ruth Haurwitz, 1937.

following double page: Giraffes, zoo at Vincennes, circa 1934.

Philippe Halsman, Muhammad Ali (né Cassius Clay), 1963.

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Lion, zoo at Vincennes, circa 1934.

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Kangaroos, zoo at Vincennes, circa 1934.

UNVERKÄUFLICHE LESEPROBE

Sam Stourdzé, Philippe Halsman

Philippe HalsmanAstonish Me!

Gebundenes Buch, Pappband, 320 Seiten, 21x26,6100 farbige Abbildungen, 200 s/w AbbildungenISBN: 978-3-7913-4907-7

Prestel

Erscheinungstermin: Februar 2014

Der Magnum-Fotograf Philippe Halsman gehörte mit 101 LIFE-Magazine Titelbildern zu denganz Großen seines Fachs. Viele weltbekannte Aufnahmen bedeutender Persönlichkeiten,unter anderem von Marilyn Monroe und Salvador Dalí, die das Bild des Porträtierten nachhaltigprägten, stammen von ihm. 25 Jahre nach seinem Tod zeigt das Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanneeine große Retrospektive. In vier Kapiteln zeigt der Katalogband eine grandiose Übersichtüber das komplette Werk des 1906 in Riga geborenen, später nach Paris und in die USAemigrierten Fotografen, dessen geniale Porträtaufnahmen unvergesslich bleiben. Auf mehr als350 großformatigen, hervorragend reproduzierten Bildern kann man sein abwechslungsreichesWerk in einem Band bestaunen.