LAUSANNE.- In 1921, Philippe Halsman found his fathers old camera, and spoke of a miracle when he developed his first glass plates in the familys bathroom sink. He was 15 years old, and this was the first encounter with photography of someone who was to become one of the leading photographers of the 20th century.
This exhibition, produced by the
Musée de lElysée in collaboration with the Philippe Halsman Archive, showcases the American photographers entire career for the first time, from his beginnings in Paris in the 1930s to the tremendous success of his New York studio between 1940 and 1970.
Halsman was able to go to Paris thanks to the support of French minister Paul Painlevé -whose son Jean, a scientific filmmaker, gave him one of the best cameras of the time upon his arrival. He remained in Paris for ten years, until 1940. Over that period, he collaborated with the magazines Vogue, Vu and Voilà and created portraits of numerous celebrities like Marc Chagall, Le Corbusier and André Malraux. He exhibited his work several times at the avant-garde Pléiade gallery, alongside photographers like Laure Albin Guillot, whose work was exhibited at Musée de lElysée in 2013.
Fleeing Nazism, he left Paris in 1940 and moved to New York. There, he worked for many American magazines including Life, which brought him into contact with the centurys top celebritiesMarilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, Duke Ellington, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Richard Nixon, Albert Einstein to name only a few. Halsman shot 101 covers for Life magazine.
Far from restricting himself to photographing celebrities, throughout his whole life Halsman never stopped experimenting and pushing the limits of his medium. He collaborated with Salvador Dalí for over thirty years and invented 'jumpology', which consisted in photographing personalities in the middle of jumping, offering a more natural, spontaneous portrait of his sujets.
This retrospective exhibition presents no less than 300 exclusive images and original documents, shedding new light on the work of an exceptional, atypical photographer.