To celebrate 50 years of Leica Galleries, Leica Gallery London is presenting unseen Lillian Bassman large-scale works at Photo London’s new venue from May 13-17, as well as vintage Brian Duffy portraits at Leica Gallery, Mayfair, London between May 9 and July 9.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the Leica Gallery in Wetzlar, Leica Gallery London will be part of this year’s Photo London exhibition at its new home in Kensington Olympia. The Leica stand will focus on the work of the American photographer, art editor and painter, Lillian Bassman.
Her unseen, oversize fashion portraits will be the main focus of the show. They were produced after her work was revisited by the fashion photography curator and art historian Martin Harrison, when he stayed at her house in the early 1990s. It will be accompanied by a group of special prints from images by Leica Legends.
Reinterpreting images
Bassman began reprinting the negatives again and applying some bleaching techniques and other toning agents with which she had first experimented in the 1940s. These created more abstract, mysterious prints.
The “reinterpretations”, as she called them, found a new generation of admirers, and a fully-fledged revival of her career ensued. Gallery shows and international exhibitions followed, including a joint retrospective at the Deichtorhallen museum in Hamburg with her husband Paul Himmel.
A series of monographs devoted to her photography was created. A one-woman show at Hamiltons Gallery in London was followed by exhibitions at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris. An assignment from The New York Times Magazine to cover the haute couture collections in Paris in 1996 followed. This turned out to be her last fashion shoot.
Inspired by giants
She was inspired by the photographers she often chose to publish in Harper’s Bazaar — the likes of Richard Avedon, Robert Frank and Louis Faurer. Her work was composed of high-contrast areas featuring dreamy and elegant portraits of slender models in couture, made in the dark room with tissues, gauzes and bleach
to manipulate tone. The grand size prints, which Leica are showing at Photo London, demonstrate a similar approach, working this time in collaboration with the master printer Chuck Kelton.
A small group of vintage Lith prints by Deborah Turbeville, shot in 1975 and mentioned in Diana Vreeland’s book ALLURE, will complement Lillian Bassman’s images. To fully celebrate 50 years of Leica Galleries, these images will be shown alongside a selection of vintage or special examples of printing from famed Leica photographers. Images from Bruce Davidson, Terry O’Neill, Eve Arnold, Steve McCurry, William Klein and Henri Cartier-Bresson, who represent the brand’s historic legacy, will round out the selection.
SHOT by Duffy
Opening on the May 9 until July 9, SHOT — Photographs by Brian Duffy — will be on display at
Leica Gallery, London, showcasing vintage prints by the sixties icon. For the first time, collectors will be
able to acquire rare vintage printings of Duffy’s most famous frames.
Duffy, of Irish descent and part of the so-called “Black Trinity” with his friends David Bailey and Terence Donovan (so-called due to their wild, bad-boy behaviour, and way of dressing) came to photography after thinking it would be much easier to make images on camera rather than to draw them.
From design to photography
He originally went to art school and then studied dress design, which led to a job as an illustrator for Harper’s Bazaar – one day he came into the office and saw a contact sheet of multiple images and
couldn’t believe that you could make all these images like that via the camera.
In the late 1950s, Duffy was introduced to then editor of Vogue, Audrey Withers, who commissioned his first photographic job. It had to be shot on a Leica camera at the request of the famous sitter, who had recently suffered a stroke and wanted a camera without noise. Duffy’s love of photographing women, his skill with portraits, and solving technical photographic problems, made him one of the most revered photographers of his day.
Duffy’s legacy remains firmly rooted in the photographic and fashion worlds. Sitters in the exhibition include Michael Caine, David Hockney, Jean Shrimpton, Grace Coddington, Len Deighton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Harry Secombe.
Reminder of the dates:
Lillian Bassman at Photo London: May 13-17
Duffy at Leica Gallery, Mayfair, London: May 9–July 9
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