Bellocq ยท Storyville reclining nudes
Tag: underwear
Berg and Hoeg ยท herstory in a box
In a box marked โprivateโ, an amazing collection of glass plates were found 30 years ago, amongst the remnants of the two portrait photographers Marie Hรธeg (1866-1949) and Bolette Berg (1872-1944).
In 1895, they established the Berg & Hรธeg photography studio in Horten, Norway, where they took portraits and views of Horten and surroundings and lived on the proceeds from sales. At that time, photography was seen as a decent and acceptable profession for women, as it was a profession that demanded a certain amount of aesthetic sense โ as part of the female nature.
Horten was a naval base with the main shipyard for the Norwegian navy and had a strong flow of people who needed photographs for celebration and recollection. Perhaps that is how the two photographers understood by the very process of portraiture how important it is to stage oneself and to what a large degree that contributes to how we are perceived.
The Preus museum collection has 440 glass negatives from Berg & Hรธeg. Among the cartons in the 1980s were discovered some on which had been written โprivate.โ It is not unusual that photographers also have private photographs in their archives. But these were not ordinary keepsake pictures. They indicate that the two photographers, especially Marie Hรธeg, experimented with various gender roles.
Imagine the fun they must have had, cross-dressing and playing! At the same time, the images are deeply serious, as they reflect upon the expectations and attitudes towards women, and their lack of rights and freedom. We know that Hรธeg was the extrovert and started groups to fight for womenโs rights. Bolette Berg was less in the public view. However, she must have been back of the camera in many of these photographs, which have attracted international notice.
We find several such boundary-breaking photographic projects in Europe and America around 1900. They correspond with womenโs battle for full civil rights and the right to define their own identity. So these photographs are a part of an international history โ or herstory โ that has meaning and recognition value for all women, including now.
All images are digital reproductions of the original glass plates. Some of the plates have cracks and damages, left visible in the reproductions.
All images and text retrieved from The Preus museum on Flickr
femme et chat ยท deux intimes
Laurence Sackman ~ 1
Laurence Sackman (1948 – 2020) started his career at the early sixties in the sulfurous world of fashion and advertising. His photographs were published in every great magazines of that time, Vogue, Stern, Sunday Times, Elle, Marie-Claireโฆ The off-the-wall spirit of his photographs made him one of the most iconic photographers of the 70s and 80s, assisted by Paolo Roversi, and by the side of Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton.
His photographs are powerful, explosive, and sometimes erotic, they witness the passion and craziness that inhabited him for decades. He had a great mastery of black and white and colors. Intense and raw, the use of these shades made his work singular.
Only a hundred prints are left from his career, most of them disappeared during his life. quoted from ODLP
In partnership with Fabienne Martin, the galerie in camera gallery lifts the veil on the work of Laurence Sackman, cult fashion photographer of the 1980s.
Laurence Sackman was born in 1948 in Wembley, a suburb of north London. He started out in photography at the age of 14, assisting still life photographer Sidney Pisan, who also practiced as a dentist. With Pisan, the young Sackman was initiated to the ring-flash that his mentor used in his medical practice and in his artistic activity. A few years later, Sackman was one of the first fashion photographers to use this type of shadow-reducing lighting.
Laurence Sackmanโs contribution to photography cannot be reduced to pretty lights polished in the studio. His work, both poetic and subversive, strongly tinged with eroticism, had the imprint of a lively sensitivity. An era is reflected in it, where all daring was permitted.
His exceptional mastery and sharp gaze hatched on the cusp of the โswinging sixtiesโ. London, the capital of pop culture, that blew a breath of freedom in art, music and fashion. Twenty years old in 1968, Sackman was part of this hedonistic youth, in full sexual liberation, eager to live in a more liberal and permissive society.
He began by photographing his relatives, his wife Rรฉmi, his cousins. The star models of the decade posed in front of his lens: Anglo-Indian Chandrika Casali, muse of Guy Bourdin and David Bailey, the iconic Grace Jones, or Renate Zatsch, muse of Helmut Newton. Without forgetting Twiggy, emblematic model of the โswinging Londonโ.
Laurence Sackmanโs images are often transgressive. His signature was essential in magazines. He worked for Esquire, Stern, Queen, The Sunday Times, Nova, the New York Times. In Paris, the Jardin des Modes and Vogue Hommes requested him.
Friend of photographer Steve Hiett who introduced him in 1970 to Claude Brouet, editor-in-chief of Marie-Claire and to Emile Laugier, its talented artistic director, Sackman left no one indifferent. Emile Laugier remembers a young man with bright intelligent eyes, high standards, with very precise directing ideas, he knew exactly what he wanted. Alain Lekim, Laurence Sackmanโs assistant for a few years, was so fascinated by the artist that he abandoned a very promising start to his career in photography to devote himself to him. The famous Paolo Roversi was his assistant. But then found Sackman โdifficult to live withโ but testifies โthat he taught him everythingโ.
At that time, the name of Sackman was on everyoneโs lips in the fashion microcosm. We only talked about his eccentricities, and, above all, his modernity, his inventiveness. Sackman carried out advertising campaigns for prominent brands: Saint-Laurent, Audi, De Beers.
One day, at the request of Yves Saint-Laurent himself, Sackman attended the preparatory meeting for a campaign where ideas were exchanged. What would he propose? To take pictures on the moonโฆ
When asked about the posterity of his style, Helmut Newton saw himself with two heirs: Laurence Sackman and Chris von Wagenheim. In fact, Sackman was the referent photographer of the 80s.
In 1983, he did his last opus, a series of nudes produced in room 65 of the Hotel La Louisiane, which became in a way his testament. According to him, the series constitutes his most successful work.
Suffering from psychiatric disorders, Laurence Sackman ended his photographic activity in 1984.
In this regard, he confided in 2017: โWhen I stopped photography, I felt like I had done everything I wanted to do. I had no regrets. I firmly believe that I would have repeated myself had I continued. โ
Such was Laurence Sackman, a celestial body, a comet that crossed the eighties.
Fabienne Martin (Galerie in camera)
Nudes by George Platt Lynes
Young woman from back, 1930s
Fieret’s studies of women
Gerard Fieret was an eccentric poet, painter and photographer who lived in The Hague. Between 1965 and 1975 he took hundreds of photos, mainly studies of women. Later, Fieret wandered the streets, fed the pigeons each day and kept his work in the freezer. His prints are creased and the edges frayed, with the occasional trace of pigeon droppings. On each photo, he signed his name in felt-tip pen and also furnished them with copyright stamps.
Untitled [Nude study], ca. 1930
ยซOog om Oogยป, 1964
Charlotte Ander, 1929-1930
un regard oblique 