Category: portraiture

Gian Paolo Barbieri

 

Gian Paolo Barbieri: Tahiti Photogrpahs, Silver Gelatin Prints

Born in Milan, Italy, in 1938, Gian Paolo Barbieri is a self-taught fashion photographer, whose professional career started with a short  apprenticeship to Harper’s Bazaar photographer Tom Kublin. In 1963, Barbieri had some images published in the Italian fashion magazine Novità, which later became Vogue Italia in 1965. 

As fashion photography had not been fully created in the 1960s, Barbieri had the unique opportunity to create a new style, with its makeup, hairstyles, and jewelry. After opening his own Milan studio in 1964, working both in Milan and Paris, he began to develop creative  relationships with fashion designer Walter Albini and Valentino Garavani, who with Barbieri was responsible for innovating modern fashion advertising campaigns. In 1965, Barbieri shot his first cover for Italian Vogue. 

An analog photographer who does not retouch his images, Gian Barbieri became a travel photographer in the 1990s. When Vogue magazine sent him to Tahiti for a photographic reportage, he found  more than just an exotic island. Like other children who sailed the South Seas through film and books by Melville and James Cook, he saw a dream-like unknown world. Barbieri’s photographs of the Polynesia culture, focusing on their tattoos, became a record of the unspoken language left on the skin of the Tahitian people. These images were collected and published in the photographic hard-cover art book “Tahiti Tattoos”, by Taschen Press in 1998. 

Gina Paolo Barbieri was awarded in 1968 the Biancmano Prize as Best Italian Photographer. He was named one of the fourteen best international fashion photographers by the German magazine Stern in 1978.

Franz Skarbina

Franz Skarbina, “Memory of Capri”, 1883, Watercolor and Gouache on Paper, 35 x 25 cm, Private Collection 

Born in Berlin in 1849, Franz Skarbina studied at the Prussian Academy of Arts, graduating two years later to become the tutor to the daughters of Count Fredrich von Perponcher-Sedinitzky, during which time he traveled with the family to Austria, Italy and throughout Germany. In 1877, Skarbine mad a year-long study trip to France and the Netherlands where he discovered the Impressionist painters. 

Skarbine began teaching at the Prussian Academy in 1878 and later in 1881 taught anatomical drawing at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Berlin. From 1882 to 1886, he mad frequent trips to France, Belgium and the Netherlands, exhibiting his art at the Paris Salon during this very productive period of his work. Appointed a Professor at the Prussian Academy in 1888, he resigned in 1893 due to disagreements with the Anton von Werner, the Academy’s Director, over his participation in the “Group of Eleven”, an association of artists promoting, outside the Academy’s influence, what was to be German Modernism. This group became the Berlin Secession, of which Skarbine was a co-founder.

Franz Skarbine became in 1895 a supervisory board member for the arts and literary magazine “Pan”, which played an important role in the development of the Art Nouveau movement in Germany. Skarbine died at his home in Berlin in May of 1910. During World War II, all the items in his estate, including many of his art works, were destroyed. 

In this watercolor by Franz Skarbina, the artists depicted are the Italian Florence-born landscape and portrait painter Alessandro Altamura and his Vienna-born colleague landscape painter Othmar Brioschi.

Image reblogged with many thanks to: https://thouartadeadthing.tumblr.com

Ray Bradbury: “Something Wicked This Way Comes”

Photographer Unknown, (Leather, Beetle, and Snake), Photo Shoot, Model Unknown

“The stuff of nightmare is their plain bread. They butter it with pain. They set their clocks by deathwatch beetles, and thrive the centuries. They were the men with the leather-ribbon whips who sweated up the Pyramids seasoning it with other people’s salt and other people’s cracked hearts. They coursed Europe on the White Horses of the Plague. They whispered to Caesar that he was mortal, then sold daggers at half-price in the grand March sale. Some must have been lazing clowns, foot props for emperors, princes, and epileptic popes. Then out on the road, Gypsies in time, their populations grew as the world grew, spread, and there was more delicious variety of pain to thrive on. The train put wheels under them and here they run down the log road out of the Gothic and baroque; look at their wagons and coaches, the carving like medieval shrines, all of it stuff once drawn by horses, mules, or, maybe, men.”

—Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

Noriko Takasugi, “Yayoi Kusama”

Noriko Takasugi, “Yayoi Kusama in Costume”

This portrait of artist Yayoi Kusama dressed in costume, seated in front of one of her pumpkin paintings, was taken at her Tokyo studio  by photographer Noriko Takasugi. Currently based in Tokyo, Takasugi majored in clinical psychology at Waseda University and participated in the Place M Photography Collective in Tokyo. She graduated with a masters degree in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at London College of Communication, University of Arts. She worked as an editor for monthly graphic magazines and is now  focused on her photography, with a particular emphasis on the people of Fukushima.

Born in March of 1929, avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama works primarily in sculpture, painting, and installation projects, but is also active in film, fashion, poetry, and performance art. She was an influential figure in the postwar New York art scene, staging provocative happenings and exhibiting works such as her “Infinity Nets”, hallucinatory paintings of loops and dots. Her “Narcissus Garden”, an installation of hundreds of mirrored balls, earned Kusama notoriety at the 1996 Venice Biennale, where she attempted to sell the individual spheres to passerby. She is often considered an influence on Andy Warhol and a precursor to Pop Art.

The website for Yayoi Kusama, including up-coming exhibitions can be found at: http://yayoi-kusama.jp

 

 

Konstantin Sorokin

Konstantin Sorokin, “Aboulfeit Djibrine Musa”, Photo Shoot

Konstantin Sorokin is a Moscow based photographer specializing on fashion and portraits. Besides his creative activities, he is actively sharing the experience of photography by teaching students and organizing seminars and lectures in different cities worldwide. 

Images reblogged with thanks to: https://celebswhogetslepton.tumblr.com

Luke Nugent, “Lithunium Snow”

 

Luke Nugent, “Lithunium Snow”, Photo Shoot

Luke Nugent is a British photographer living in London and working internationally. He studied photography at London’s University of Greenwich, and has been shooting professionally since his late teens. Working primarily in the fields of music, portraiture and fashion, Nugent works with top models, musicians and personalities to develop imagery of a high technical and aesthetic standard. He has experience assisting world renowned photographer Rankin and has collaborated on various projects for Nick Knight’s award winning fashion website “SHOWstudio” including editorial features, video projects and live events.

Born in October of 1998 in Haarlem, Netherlands, Nils Kuiper, known as Lithunium Snow, is a model in the alternative modeling world, having been featured in publications like Dark Beauty Magazine and Gothesque Magazine. In 2016, he won the title of Mr. Alternative.

The website of photographer Luke Nugent can be found at: https://lukenugent.co.uk

Paul Jasmin

Paul Jasmin, “Rodney, Edie, and Bosco, Hollywood”, 1990, Silver Gelatin Print

Born in April of 1935, Paul Jasmin was an actor, illustrator, and painter before focusing on photography. He left his hometown of Helena, Montana, in 1954 to travel in the world and pursue an acting career in New York and Los Angeles. He performed small cameo roles in the 1959 “Riot in Juvenile Prison”, “Midnight Cowboy” in 1969, and Spike Jonze’s 2002 “Adaption”. Working with actors Virginia Gregg and Jeanette Nolan, Paul Jasmin provided one of the three vocals mixed together for the voice of Norman’s mother in Hitchcock’s “Psycho”.

From 1965 to 1975, Jasmin concentrated on painting and illustration. He provided illustrative work for the fashion campaigns of the luxury Valentino brand. Jasmin also illustrated the advertising poster for the 1972 American porno film “Bijou”, directed by dancer and choreographer Wakefield Poole. 

Urged by friend and photographer Bruce Weber, Paul Jasmin turned to photography, with his imagery focusing on the unknown people he discovered on his travels. He began doing work for commercial clients in the late 1970s, working for the brands SAKS, Nautica, and Mr.Porter. Jasmin’s current editorial work appears in Vogue, Teen Vogue, GQ, Details, V Magazine, V Man, and Vogue Hommes, among other publications,

Since 2002, Jasmin has produced a several photographic studies of life in California, including “Hollywood Cowboy”, published in 2002 by Arena Editions; the 2008 “Los Angeles”, published by Steidl: and “California Dreaming”, published by Steidl in 2011. His 2008 “Lost Angeles” series, a study of those ‘tarnished angels’ who come to Hollywood seeking their dreams, is considered one of his most prominent works. 

Paul Jasmin currently teaches photography at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

China Miéville: “I Have Danced with the Spider”

Photographer Unknown, (I Have Danced with the Spider)

“Its substance was known to me. The crawling infinity of colours, the chaos of textures that went into each strand of that eternally complex tapestry…each one resonated under the step of the dancing mad god, vibrating and sending little echoes of bravery, or hunger, or architecture, or argument, or cabbage or murder or concrete across the aether. The weft of starlings’ motivations connected to the thick, sticky strand of a young thief’s laugh. The fibres stretched taut and glued themselves solidly to a third line, its silk made from the angles of seven flying buttresses to a cathedral roof. The plait disappeared into the enormity of possible spaces.

Every intention, interaction, motivation, every colour, every body, every action and reaction, every piece of physical reality and the thoughts that it engendered, every connection made, every nuanced moment of history and potentiality, every toothache and flagstone, every emotion and birth and banknote, every possible thing ever is woven into that limitless, sprawling web.

It is without beginning or end. It is complex to a degree that humbles the mind. It is a work of such beauty that my soul wept…

..I have danced with the spider. I have cut a caper with the dancing mad god.”

–China Miéville, Perdido Street Station

Herbert List

Herbert List, Title Unknown, (Fishmonger),  London, 1964, Silver Gelatin Print

“The pictures I took spontaneously, with a bliss-like sensation, as if they had long inhabited my unconscious, were more often more powerful than those I had painstakingly composed. I grasped their magic as in passing.”

Herbert List

Note: A biography of Herbert List can be found in the November 2021 archive of this site.

Luke Austin

Luke Austin, “Self-Portrait”, 2018

Australian-born and now living in Los Angeles, Luke Austin started out as a photographer doing photo shoots of bands and musicians, later moving to portraits representing his own gay community. Working with his Instagram app, he has traveled the world and shot many photo shoots of over a hundred men in different cities. Austin has gone from a large Instagram following to becoming a published photographer with his series of “Mini Beau Books” and his latest book “LEWA”, a photographic study of race, masculinity, and sexuality.

Austin has recently shown at a solo 2018 exhibit “LEWA” at PT Gallery in Berlin, the 2018 “Queer Biennial” group show at Navel in Los Angeles, and the 2017 “Home” group show at the Stonewall National Museum and Archives, in Florida.

His work can be seen at his gallery in Los Angeles and at his site: www.lukeaustinphoto.com,

Image reblogged with many thanks to https://doctordee.tumblr.com

 

 

Thomas de Quincey: “Confessions of an English Opium Eater”

Photographer Unknown, (Seated with Flowers)

“I ran into pagodas, and was fixed for centuries at the summit or in secret rooms: I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Brama through all the forests of Asia: Vishnu hated me: Seeva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris: I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried for a thousand years in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by crocodiles; and laid, confounded with all unutterable slimy things, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud.”

― Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater

 

Ram Shergill, “Aaran Sly”

Ram Shergill, “Aaran Sly”, Photo Shoot Entitled ‘The Proust Ball’

British-born Indian fashion photographer Ram Shergill was severely visually impaired as a child. After having his eyesight corrected, he discovered the work of artists such as Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, and Irving, whom he credits as important inspirations and whose influence can be seen in his works. Shergill often uses the iconic images of previous fashion photographers and Old Master painters as inspirational starting points for his images, transforming them to create new effects for his contemporary models and settings. 

During his studies, Shergill initially worked with Philip Treacy on a project and, as a result, starting to work with Isabella Blow and Alexander McQueen, becoming a force within the fashion and art world himself. Shergill has became one of the key imagists of the avant-garde ‘Cool Britannia’ fashion scene and one of Britain’s leading fashion photographers and has since progressed into fine art photography.

Ram Shergill often designs his fashion and art photography toward the Indian Subcontinent, a region. often overlooked, with which he maintains a strong relationship. His works often show models exploring the culture and landscape of India’s culturally diverse provinces. A selection of his work of singer songwriter Amy Winehouse has been acquired by the National Portrait Gallery and are now part of the permanent Collection alongside artists such as David Hockney and Cecil Beaton.

Ram Sergill’s image above shows English model Aaran Sky in a setting with an atmospheric reminiscence of the Proust Ball. This gala occasion was considered socialite Marie-Helene de Rothschild’s greatest triumph, a 1971 ball thrown in honor of the 100th anniversary of Marcel Proust’s birth. Around 350 guests attended the extremely rich dinner at Château de Ferrières, her home outside of Paris, with 350 more guests arriving in time for a second, later dinner. Among the guests were Princess Grace of Monaco, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and French model and actress Marisa Berenson. The photographer for the event was the renowned Cecil Beaton.

Ram Sergill’s website is located at: https://www.ramshergill.com

Arthur Schopenhauer: “Desipere est jus Gentium”

Photographers Unknown, A Collection of Twelve Portraits for a Midsummer’s Day

“The only safe rule, therefore, is that which Aristotle mentions in the last chapter of his ‘Topica’: not to dispute with the first person you meet, but only with those of your acquaintance of whom you know that they possess sufficient intelligence and self-respect not to advance absurdities; to appeal to reason and not to authority, and to listen to reason and yield to it; and, finally, to cherish truth, to be willing to accept reason even from an opponent, and to be just enough to bear being proved to be in the wrong, should truth lie with him. From this it follows that scarcely one man in a hundred is worth your disputing with him. You may let the remainder say what they please, for every one is at liberty to be a fool—desipere est jus gentium.” 

–Arthur Schopenhauer, The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Art of Controversy

 

Teresa Oaxaca

Teresa Oaxaca, “Patrick”, 2012, Oil on Canvas, 70 x 40 Inches, Private Collection

Teresa Oaxaca is an American-born painter who is currently living and working in Washington DC. She graduated with a BA from the Angel Academy of Art located in Florence, Italy. Oaxaca did her graduate studies at the Florence Academy, with an apprenticeship with Swedish-born figurative painter Odd Nerdum in Norway. She continues her studies at the Art League of Alexandria, Virginia, training with realist artists Robert Liberace. Oaxaca currently teaches workshops in the United States and Europe. 

With her studies in Italy, Teresa Oaxaca has mastered the mid-17th century Renaissance painting technique of chiaroscuro. The term ‘chiaroscuro’ originated as drawing on colored paper, where the artist worked from the paper’s base tone towards light using white gouache, and towards dark using ink or watercolor. This technique enables a painter or draftsman to increase the depth and solidity of an image, heightening realism through the use of strong contrasts between light and dark tones.

Teresa Oaxaca has participated with local groups including The Arts Club of Washington, The Art League School of Alexandria, and the National Education Association. She became a member in 2014 of the Young Partners Circle of The national Museum of Women in the Arts. Oaxaca’s work has been recognized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Posey Foundation, The American Museum of the Cowboy, The Portrait Society of America, and the Museu Europeu d’Art Modern located in Barcelona. 

Current works by Teresa Oaxaca can be seen at her site: https://www.teresaoaxaca.com