One of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, Phillipe Halsman is best known for his portraits of famous faces and for his collaborations with Salvador Dal铆 and Alfred Hitchcock. Always searching for new photographic perspectives, his oeuvre demonstrates an exceptional degree of inventiveness and technical skill. Born in Riga in 1906, Halsman rapidly rose to become an admired portrait artist, photographing icons of the 20th century such as Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill.
Kunsthal Rotterdam鈥檚 exhibition Astonish Me!聽is a collaboration with Mus茅e de l’Elys茅e, Lausanne, and includes more than 300 never-before exhibited works, including contact prints, vintage prints and original photomontages which illustrate Halsman’s constant quest for photographic possibilities and impossibilities.
His direct approach, perfectly mastered technique, 聽remarkable eye for detail and experiments with the medium resulted in a highly diverse oeuvre ranging from portraits, fashion, photo reports, advertising, personal projects and commissions for institutions and private customers. The exhibition reveals his methods of working, which involved giving himself a set of rules, resulting in a unique visual style.
Halsman committed himself to using unconventional techniques.聽 His fascination with the surreal brought him into contact with like-minded artists, with whom he loved to spend countless hours exchanging ideas. That spirit of collaboration resulted in the Hitchcock portrait series and Dal铆 Atomicus (1948) with its flying cats, water thrown from buckets and an astonished Dal铆, mid jump with paintbrush in hand.
A signature of Halsman鈥檚 work is the idea of 鈥渏umpology photography鈥, which included photos of film stars and politicians captured in mid-jump, the aim of which was to give his portraits a more spontaneous character. He once said: 鈥淲hen you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed towards the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears.鈥
Philippe Halsman: Astonish Me!,聽27 February聽–聽12 June, Kunsthal Rotterdam, Westzeedijk 341, 3015 AA Rotterdam, Netherlands.
For more, visit .
Follow us on Twitter for the latest news in contemporary art and culture.
Credits
1.聽Philippe Halsman,聽Salvador Dal铆 with Rhinoceros Head, Performance for the CBS-TV 鈥淢orning Show鈥, 1956, 漏Philippe Halsman Archive.
