Lillian Bassman Art Prints

Photographer Lillian Bassman is best known for her elegant, moody fashion photographs from the 1940s through the 1960s. Born in New York City, Bassman studied fabric design, painting, and fashion illustration as a young woman. The art director of Harper's Bazaar saw her illustrations and offered her a job. Soon she became co-art director of the related magazine Junior Bazaar. While there, Bassman began experimenting on her own with photographic printing techniques. By 1947, Bassman was a full-time photographer working for such clients as Chanel, Revlon, and Dewar's. When Bassman decided to pursue independent projects in the 1970s, she destroyed much of her earlier commercial work. Fortunately some of her negatives survived, and when she rediscovered them in 1991, she began reworking them. Beginning in 1993, they were exhibited in one-person shows in London, New York City, and Atlanta, Georgia. A show called Hommage a Lillian Bassman was exhibited at the Louvre Museum in Paris. At the age of 79, Bassman began to work as a fashion photographer again, for such clients as Macy's and the New York Times. A book of Bassman's photographs, called Lillian Bassman, was published by Bulfinch in 1997.