A stunning self-portrait by Lee Miller
modern archival-toned gelatin silver print from original negative, 1939 @NPGLondon
Leonora Carrington by Lee Miller
modern archival-toned gelatin silver print from original negative, 1939 @NPGLondon
Humphrey Jennings by Lee Miller
gelatin silver print, 1942 @NPGLondon
I didn't know Jennings; he's a documentary filmmaker. Lindsay Anderson in 1954 called him "the only real poet that British cinema has yet produced."
But Miller seems more interested in the smoke...
Celebrate the Betty Freeman Centennial 💯🎂
The great patron of modern music was also a very fine photographer.
"A camera is like a golf club: this inert thing until you use it."
Her 1988 portrait of Alfred Brendel
Celebrate the Betty Freeman Centennial 💯🎂🎉
"She was our Prince Esterhazy, & L.A. was her Grand Palais where, instead of Haydn, the likes of Boulez, Birtwistle, & Lachenmann displayed their wares."
- Russell Platt
📷 With John Cage
Betty Freeman
John Adams rehearsing at Royce Hall, UCLA
February 1989 #Freeman100
Nelson Riddle's partnership with Nat King Cole in the 1950s was nearly as fruitful as the collaboration with Sinatra. It began with his arrangement for "Mona Lisa" in 1958, which Les Baxter took credit for. #Riddle100
Another big hit for Nat King Cole & Nelson Riddle, "Unforgettable", recorded in 1951 #Riddle100
The first Cole/Riddle LP was the 10" Nat King Cole Sings For Two In Love, also from 1951. Standards from Nat King Cole, including the Gershwins' Our Love Is Here to Stay, which was one of a few songs that was really special for Dixie & me. #Riddle100
Remembering Nobel laureate Saint-John Perse on his birthday
📷 Sergio Larrain, 1959
"The reader has to allow the images to fall into his memory successively without questioning the reasonableness of each at the moment; so that, at the end, a total effect is produced."
- TS Eliot
Sergio Larrain's photograph of Saint-John Perse with his wife Dorothy Milburn Russell, in the Hotel Cambon, Washington DC, 1959
Saint-John Perse is awarded the Grand Prix National des Lettres by André Malraux, 1959.
Remembering Fred Allen on his birthday
A great shot by George Silk for Life, 1950
Allen is one of my heroes. He seems terribly sad, resting backstage during a TV rehearsal. The great radio comedian didn't enjoy television much; he said he didn't like furniture that talked.
I'm reading Fred Allen's 1954 book Treadmill to Oblivion. Love the Hirschfeld illustrations! You can borrow the book from archive.org: archive.org/details/treadm…
Another Hirschfeld illustration from Fred Allen's Treadmill to Oblivion. Today we're celebrating the great radio comedian's birthday.