JUMP with PHILIPPE !!!
I discovered Philippe Halsman’s jumping genius quite innocently, when I saw The Cat Girl in The New Yorker. She was jumping there to promote the current Halsman show at Laurence Miller Gallery. Needless to say I squealed very loudly in delight, and then went a little nuts on the interweb to find more jumpers.
I was un-disappointed. How the hell have I not seen these???
This book appears very $$$ to acquire, but I may try to procure one anyway.
Ok, now The Smithsonian will tell us what’s going on here.
Jump was born in 1952, Halsman said, after an arduous session photographing the Ford automobile family to celebrate the company’s 50th anniversary. As he relaxed with a drink offered by Mrs. Edsel Ford, the photographer was shocked to hear himself asking one of the grandest of Grosse Pointe’s grande dames if she would jump for his camera. “With my high heels?” she asked. But she gave it a try, unshod—after which her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Henry Ford II, wanted to jump too.
For the next six years, Halsman ended his portrait sessions by asking sitters to jump. It is a tribute to his powers of persuasion that Richard Nixon, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Judge Learned Hand (in his mid-80s at the time) and other figures not known for spontaneity could be talked into rising to the challenge of…well, rising to the challenge. He called the resulting pictures his hobby, and in Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book, a collection published in 1959, he claimed in the mock-academic text that they were studies in “jumpology.”
Portraiture is one of the greatest challenges in photography, because the human face is elusive and often mask-like, with practiced expressions for the standard range of emotions. Some photographers accept these preset expressions—think of annual-report portraits of corporate officers—and others try to eliminate expression altogether, to get a picture as neutral as a wanted poster. Halsman was determined to show his sitters with their masks off but their true selves in place.
Halsman at work.
ENJOY.
Duke & Dutchess of Windsor, 1956
Grace Kelly, 1959
Richard Nixon, 1955
Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham, 1947
Brigitte
Audrey
Dick Clark, 1952
Dianna Dorrs, 1956
Eva Marie Saint, 1954
Jean Seberg with Cat, 1959
Professor J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1958
Professor J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1958
Dali with three girls, 1949
Weegee, 1961
Edward Steichen, 1955
Mike Wallace, 1957
J Fred Muggs, 1953
see more more more.
detectmendacity says on:
April 30, 2010 2:33pm
Halsman is a favorite of mine -- you should see his "Atomicus" photo with Salvador Dali! It's the pinnacle of his jumpology work.
dscruggs says on:
April 28, 2010 9:44am
This is too much! I don't know how I haven't seen these before either. Thanks for sharing the wealth.