Deichtorhallen Hamburg will present the artist’s first comprehensive exhibition in Europe. Open through february 21, 2010
Lillian Bassman and Paul Himmel count among the masters of photography. The House of Photography of Deichtorhallen Hamburg prepares the first comprehensive retrospective of the artist couple. Besides the well-known photographs, published in “Vogue” and “Harper’s Bazaar”, yet unpublished photographs of the two artists will be exposed.
Paul Himmel, “Falling Snow – Boy in Window”, New York, 1952. Silbergelatine, 24.8 x 31.6 cm. ©Paul Himmel
Today Lillian Bassman belongs to the last great woman photographers in the fashion world. In the 1940s and 1960s she worked as an art director for “Junior Bazaar” and later for “Harper’s Bazaar”, and promoted photographers, such as Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Louis Faurer and Arnold Newman.
Paul Himmel (born 1914 as son of Ukrainian pilgrims; died in Feb. 2009 in New York) was one of the last great living photographers from the early era of American photography. He gained fame through his early exhibition “The Familiy of Man”, curated by Edward Steichen, which then turned around the world. In the mid-thirties, Lillian Bassman and Paul Himmel got married. Contrary to his wife, Paul Himmel increasingly lost interest in fashion photography. He began to develop his own projects, most of them radical experiments.
The Deichtorhallen is one of the best known exhibition institutions worldwide. The historical buildings are divided into an exhibition hall for contemporary art and the „House of Photography.“ Together the two buildings organize a highly diverse program of changing exhibitions.
Deichtorhallen Hamburg
House of Photography – Contemporary Art
Deichtorstraße 1 – 2
D-20095 Hamburg
Tel. +49-(0)40-32 10 30
Fax +49-(0)40-32 10 3-230
www.deichtorhallen.de
