Philippe Halsman

PHILIPPE HALSMAN (Riga, 1906 - New York, 1979).
"Untitled (Reflection)," c. 1940.
Silver gelatin photograph.
Stamped on the back "Copyright by Philippe Halsman".
Measurements: 20.5 x 21 cm; 31.5 x 29 cm (frame).
Halsman studied electrical engineering in Dresden, after being accused of the murder of his father, he spent two years in prison. Upon his release Halsman decided to move to France, where he began contributing to fashion magazines such as Vogue and soon earned a reputation as one of France's top portrait photographers. Famous for his sharp rather than soft-focus, tightly cropped images. When France was invaded by Germany, Halsman fled to Marseille. He eventually managed to obtain an American visa, with the help of his family friend Albert Einstein, whom he later photographed in 1947. Halsman had his first success in the United States when the cosmetics firm Elizabeth Arden used his image of model Constance Ford against the American flag in an advertising campaign for "Victory Red" lipstick. A year later, in 1942, he found work at Life magazine, photographing hat designs; In 1941 Halsman met surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and they began collaborating in the late 1940s. The 1948 work Dalí Atomicus explores the idea of suspension, depicting three cats flying, a bucket of water thrown and Dalí in the air. The title of the photograph is a reference to Dalí's work Leda Atomicus, which can be seen to the right of the photograph behind the two cats. Halsman and Dalí eventually published a compendium of their collaborations in the 1954 book Dali's Moustache, which features 36 different views of the artist's distinctive mustache. Another famous collaboration between the two was In Voluptas Mors, a surrealist portrait of Dalí next to a large skull, in fact a tableau vivant composed of seven nudes. In 1947 Halsman took what would become one of his most famous photos of a mournful Albert Einstein, who during the photo shoot recounted his regret over his role in the United States pursuing the atomic bomb. The photo would later be used in 1966 on a U.S. postage stamp and, in 1999, on the cover of Time magazine, when it called Einstein the "Person of the Century." In 1951, NBC commissioned Halsman to photograph several popular comedians of the era, including Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Groucho Marx and Bob Hope. The photographer developed a philosophy of jump photography, which he called jumpology.He published Philippe Halsman's Jump Book in 1959, which contained a tongue-in-cheek discussion of jumpology and 178 photographs of famous jumpers.