Halsman revisited
You might remember I did a post ( August 25th) on “odd books”and one of them was a collaboration between Phillipe Halsman and Salvadore Dali called ”Dali’s Mustache”.
It’s a curious phenomenon which probably has been given the dignity of a scientific name, that when your attention is called to something, no matter how obscure that something might be, the universe suddenly seems alive with multiple references to that which was previously unnoticed. This phenomenon is usually explained by the fact that because you have sensitized yourself to that whatever it may be, you are suddenly aware of its presence; it was there all along but you were plodding along, head down, so you missed it.
Be as that may, since I posted that notice, Philippe Halsman seems to be everywhere, making a mockery of my declaration in the previous post: ” Philippe Halsman, in the 40s and 50s a famous magazine photographer, has seen his star dim…” Maybe Halsman’s star was in the heavens all along and I just didn’t look up. In any event, shortly after that post I came across this from the Associated Press:
Relatives of one of the world’s most famous portrait photographers have sued a Manhattan gallery, saying it lost valuable photographs created with Spanish surrealist master Salvador Dali. A daughter and two grandchildren of the late Philippe Halsman say in a lawsuit 41 of the works created by Halsman and Dali were reported stolen in April 2007.The works were among dozens delivered to the Howard Greenberg Gallery in 2003 and 2004. The federal court lawsuit demands $684,000 in damages…
I’ll try to keep track of the resolution of this lawsuit which evidently involves some of those images I derided in my previous post. And not long after, my attention was called to the fact that one of Halsman’s grandchildren, Oliver Halsman Rosenberg, ( I don’t know if he’s part of the shenanigans above) has brought out his own Halsman book. “Unknown Halsman “, which Amazon describes as ” a uniquely designed and sequenced monograph that is both colorful and spirited…hand illustrated by Oliver Halsman Rosenberg in a unique brush font that is inspired by Japanese calligraphy and hand-made zines. Contributing to the…intimate feel of this publication are the use of yellow throughout the book, inspired by a wall in Halsman’s former photo studio; the blue floral endpapers, which were taken from the fabric of Halsman’s couch; and the use of a typewriter font …”
I haven’t seen a copy of the book but judging from the promotional copy above and the cover it may well emphasize the master’s frivolous side. In other words, there were two Halsmans embodied in the same man: the Serious Artist and the Joker.
When I was a young photographer, you didn’t see much frivolity connected with the name of Phillip Halsman. It was the serious Halsman who was everywhere with his ingenious portrait photography of many a celebrity; the Annie Leibovitz of his day, you might say. In 1958, Popular Photography named him one of the “World’s Ten Greatest Photographers” and the artcylopedia notes “For three decades, from the Forties to the Seventies, Philippe Halsman’s fascinating portraits of celebrities, intellectuals and politicians have been published in the most significant magazines … Life published his portraits on 101 covers, a record for any artist.” Along along with Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Arnold Newman and Karsh, he was considered one of the the masters of photographic portraiture.
To quote the master himself, ”This fascination with the human face has never left me. Every face I see seems to hide and sometimes, fleetingly, to reveal the mystery of another human being. Capturing this revelation became the goal and passion of my life.”
For example:
The young Marlon Brando and the elderly Georgia O’Keefe by Philippe Halsman
half man, half-camera
the photographer Andreas Feininger by Halsman
No frivolity here, certainly. And one of Halsman’s most celebrated portraits was of none other than his companion in jokery, Salvadore Dali, called “Dali Atomicus”:
One must applaud this prodigious and yes serious effort to capture the essence of the Dali imagination which in those pre-Photoshop days entailed the tossing of a number of cats in the air. ”Six hours and twenty-eight throws later, the result satisfied my striving for perfection,” wrote Halsman without noting how many times he had to throw the Surrealist master into the air, “My assistants and I were wet, dirty, and near complete exhaustion…” A “striving for perfection” that if made today probably would inspire the animal rights people to storm his studio, littered as it was with water, broken furniture, and feline remains.
I poke fun but “Dali Atomicus” remains a tour-de-force, in no way diminished by the fact that these days it all could be done in a computer. But there’s the other face of Janus, the goofy face, and Salvadore Dali was often the collaborator in that aspect of Halsman’s art:
OR
“Mystery” in other words often gave way to buffoonery, especially late in his career with the publication of his “Jump Book” which featured celebrities leaping into the air and shortly afterwards came that odd little book with Dali.
Nowadays the portraits that were so influential in my youth don’t appear to interest today’s photographers who seem less impressed with virtuosic feats of camera art. Perhaps Halsman’s frivolities might paradoxically appear to be more contemporary; a more relevant entrance point to the master’s work for those raised on the ironic goofiness of Youtube videos.