Photographer Lillian Bassman Dies at 94

Lillian Bassman

Little did I know that on Sunday night as I was writing my post about one my favourite photographers, Lillian Bassman, was dying in New York. At the age of  94 the great and talented Lillian Bassman left us.

Today on the same day last year in New York the Mayor declared it 'Happy Lillian Bassman Day' and what a fitting honour to a fabulous woman and photographer. A woman that helped 'hack through the bamboo' for many other female photographers in the masculine dominated world of photography.

There is a wonderful article in the New York Times about her life and her work and I highly recommend you read it.

Here's what Lillian Bassman had to say on creating her own style.

“I was interested in developing a method of printing on my own, even before I took photographs,” Ms. Bassman told B&W magazine in 1994. “I wanted everything soft edges and cropped.” She was interested, she said, in “creating a new kind of vision aside from what the camera saw.”

And Editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar Glenda Bailey said the following about two of Lillian Bassman's favourite photos.  "You have an emotional response to her photographs — you can almost smell the lily, hear the phone ring, feel the fur. Lillian is a poet of photography."

We will miss you Lillian thanks for leaving us with your legacy of beautiful images, your true artistic vision and the hope to attain the heights of beauty that you did.

Carla xx

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