photographer

The Penetrating Portraits of Irving Penn

Filed under: Art, Books

What do Pablo Picasso, Duke Ellington, Marlene Dietrich, Francis Bacon, Truman Capote, Helmut Newton and Jasper Johns have in common? All are featured in a brilliant new book of portraits by the late, great master of photography Irving Penn, who sought to capture the true persona behind the facade of famous figures. Published by the National Portrait Gallery in London in conjunction with an exhibition running at the museum through June 6, Irving Penn: Portraits features images brought together from major international collections for the exhibit. It includes a selection of superb reproductions from the exhibition's 120 silver and platinum prints, ranging from Penn's portraits for Vogue magazine in the 1940s to some of his last work prior to his death last year.

Tags: art books, coffee table books, ehibition, Francis Bacon, Irving Penn, London, museum, photographer, photography, UK, Vogue

Backstage Dior, An Eye-Popping All-Access Pass

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Apparel, Books

Renowned photographer Roxanne Lowit has been chronicling the fashion scene for the past 30 years; early on she staked out the backstage areas at fashion shows, where the really interesting action takes place, as her prime hunting ground for capturing the most beautiful people in their natural habitat. Now Lowit, whose work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum and others, has an incredible new book just published by teNeues, focusing on brilliant, flamboyant Dior deigner John Galliano's couture concoctions which she chronicled for over a decade. Backstage Dior, with a foreword by Galliano, mixes black-and-white and color images, candids and close-ups, delving into the fascinating details behind the scenes. The book is a must for any devotée of fashion, spectacle, photography, or all three.

Tags: Christian Dior, ChristianDior, Dior, fashion show, Fashion Week, FashionShow, FashionWeek, French fashion, FrenchFashion, John Galliano, JohnGalliano, Metropolitan Museum of Art, MetropolitanMuseumOfArt, models, photographer, photography, Roxanne Lowit, RoxanneLowit

Remarkable Residences, Through the Eye of an Earl

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Decor, Estates, Books

The English aristocrat the 12th Earl of Drogheda, better known as Derry Moore to his friends, is an arbiter of taste and style but also an accomplished photographer for Architectural Digest and other magazines, as well as the the author of several books. His latest, In House, just published by Rizzoli, is a selection of interiors from what he considers to be some of the world's most remarkable residences photographed over the last 35 years. The 28 houses pictured within are richly diverse in style and period with a common thread of originality, eccentricity and aesthetic appeal. They range from an airy and colorful palace in Morocco to an "austere but whimsical" Scottish castle; an Art Deco masterpiece in Jodhpur to a cluttered apartment in Prague; and from the museum-like home of one of London's most macabre collectors to the "extravagant remnants of Madrid's aristocratic heritage." Each of the houses is accompanied by commentary from noted architecture and design writer Mitchell Owens, and is laid out with an eye to its unique character by award-winning graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook.

Tags: Architectural Digest, ArchitecturalDigest, aristocrat, castle, interior design, InteriorDesign, photographer, photography, UK

Norman Parkinson: A Very British Glamour

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Books

British photographer Norman Parkinson's name may not be terribly well known today, but his influence on a subsequent generation of fashion photographers is obvious from a new survey of his work just published by Rizzoli. Norman Parkinson: A Very British Glamour is a lavish portrait of Parkinson's long career from the 1930s through the 1980s, produced in a unique collaboration with the Norman Parkinson Archive in London. Parkinson got his start at Vogue in London, was a protégé of the great Alexander Lieberman at American Vogue when he came to New York, and did some of his most innovative work in the Diana Vreeland years there. In a career that spanned more than four decades, Parkinson worked with the greatest models, from Carmen Dell'Orefice, often called the first supermodel, who was Parkinson's early muse, to the young Jerry Hall, whom Parkinson shot for her first Vogue cover as well as in an historic 1975 shoot staged in the USSR. His iconic photographs for the likes of Vogue, Queen, and Harper's Bazaar are reproduced in the volume alongside a trove of previously unpublished fashion work.

Tags: fashion, Jerry Hall, JerryHall, models, Norman Parkinson, NormanParkinson, photographer, photography, UK, Vogue

Selling Real Estate to Leibovitz "Big Mistake"

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art, Real Estate Developments

Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz may lose her two high profile properties if Art Capital Group wins its $24 million lawsuit. They are side-by-side in Greenwich Village and date back to the 1830s. Leibovitz's plan was to combine 755 Greenwich Street and 757 Greenwich Street into a single 9,000 sqft life/work space. These plans, of course, are in jeopardy, and the former owner of the Greenwich Street homes, Jay Furman, partner in FYH Village LLC, is calling the sale a "big mistake."

The renovations have taken years, resulting in legal action from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and a $15 million lawsuit against Leibovitz by her next-door neighbor. The suit was settled in 2003, when the photographer bought the litigant's building for $1.87 million. So, she wound up paying for three properties (12,000 sq. ft. in all), which contributed to a tenuous financial situation and the loan from Art Capital Group, according to Bloomberg News.

These transactions were only part of a mountain of debt amassed by the photographer. From 1999 to 2008, Leibovitz borrowed extensively to purchase property and refinance the debt she was carrying. In total, her activity stretched to more than a dozen loans, Bloomberg News reports, all on the back of her real estate holdings. Two 2006 loans – for $4.7 million in November and $2.5 million in December – were extended by Rhinebeck Properties LLC, which happens to have the same address as Conde Nast Publications Inc.

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Tags: annie leibovitz, AnnieLeibovitz, art, artist, artwork, breaking, breaking news, BreakingNews, greenwich, greenwich village, GreenwichVillage, new york, new york city, new york new york, NewYork, NewYorkCity, NewYorkNewYork, photographer, photographs, photography, real estate, RealEstate