Marilyn Monroe for cover of Life magazine, April 7, 1952
Halsman was one of the first photographers to recognise Monroe’s ability to seduce the lens. He chronicled her rise over ten years and was commissioned by Life to make a series of portraits that would contribute to her reputation of seduction and vulnerability.
Halsman
The Versatile Jean Cocteau, 1949
Jean Cocteau, the French writer, poet, playwright and visual artist, had a wealth of talents. It was what Halsman set out to capture in this hand-cut montage.
Halsman
Salvador Dalí with a rhinoceros head, 1956
Dali is shown here with a sculpture he created entitled Rinoceronte vestido con puntillas (Rhinoceros dressed in lace), inspired by a 1515 Albrecht Dürer woodcut, known as Dürer’s Rhinoceros.
Halsman
Dali Atomicus, 1948
Halsman and Salvador Dali worked together for 35 years on projects that brought out the imagination in both of them. In photo sessions they would repeat motions to establish perfect shots that would then be melted into a single image. Dali Atomicus, published in Life in 1948, explored the laws of suspension.
Halsman
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, 1956
At the end of a photo session, Halsman would ask his subjects to jump. He found that they became more genuine when they let go. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor surprised everyone by accepting the challenge. He published more than 170 portraits of celebrities in The Jump Book.
Halsman
Dali’s Mustache, 1954: “Like two sentinels, my mustache stands guard over my person”
Halsman decided very early on in his creative alliance with Salvador Dali that his moustache would become a source of eccentric exploration. He used it repeatedly as a theme to investigate the surrealist potential of photography.
Halsman
During the 40 years of his career, Philippe Halsman used the element of surprise in his works, hence “Astonish me!”, the title of a show at Lausanne’s Elysée Museum..
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Unlike many of the photographers of his time, Halsman (1906-1979) did not use photography as a means to seize a fleeting moment –discovering the thrill of being in the right place at the right time. Instead, he carefully crafted each one of his images, seeking however to retain an element of spontaneity.
It was this spontaneity, and perhaps a dose of unorthodox humour, that allowed Halsman to capture what he qualified as the ‘essence’ of the celebrities he was asked to portray more than 100 times for Life magazine.
When he asked his subjects at the end of a photo session to jump in the air, they hardly ever refused, including Richard Nixon and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The science of ‘jumpology’, as he called it, allowed them to forget the camera and reveal themselves.
Halsman’s broad range of activities (portraits, fashion shoots, reportages, advertisements and personal projects) were closely tied to the arrival of glossy magazines. When cinema and then television came to dominate the entertainment industry in the fifties and sixties, he learned to compete with new strategies.
He realised that when his irreverent sense of humour shone through and his quirky creativity was allowed to flourish he could stay on top of the game. His collaboration with the Surrealist Salvatore Dali over 30 years proved he was right.
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