Remembering Doris Lessing on her birthday π
π· Roger Mayne, 1959 @NPGLondon
"Doris Lessing is the ideal winner of the Nobel Prize. After all, the prize is about idealism, & was founded in the belief that writers can make the world a better place."
- Tom Payne
Doris Lessing by Marianne Majerus, 1984 @NPGLondon
"What luxury a cat is, the moments of shocking & startling pleasure in a day, the feel of the beast, the soft sleekness under your palm, ... the grace & charm even in a quite ordinary workaday puss."
What a lovely portrait of Doris Lessing, by Toby Melville.
"She was adept at tracing sly signs of continuity where that particular path through the narrative woods had been overgrown and bypassed time out of mind β not least by Lessing."
- Lorna Sage
Doris Lessing wins the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature, & this is what she finds on her doorstep.
π· Shaun Curry
Doris Lessing by Ida Kar
2 1/4 inch square film negative, late 1950s @NPGLondon
Roots & flowers...
Doris Lessing by Sophie Bassouls
Paris, 1995
"I keep on writing. I consider that professionalism. But I don't see the use of it sometimes."
β’ β’ β’
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Happy birthday to Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk π
π· Ara GΓΌler
"His books are multi-layered, allegorical, sometimes fanciful, Proustian in their attention to detail and Borgesian in their dazzling complexity."
- Sarah Lyall
Orhan Pamuk by Sophie Bassouls, 1990
"Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow."
It's so great that other photographers have continued Philippe Halsman's #jump! tradition. Here's Orhan Pamuk by Alex Majoli.
This was taken at Cannes in 2007, when Pamuk was a member of the Festival Jury.
Celebrate the Richard Avedon Centennial ππ―
π· Irving Penn, Vogue, August 23, 1993
"He was small, dark & electric with his own sort of vitality. Crackling. Sparks seem to fly out of him. He flashes his fingers like tiny rapid moths."
- Ginette Spanier
On Richard Avedon's Centennial, my favourite portraits
Carson McCullers & Tennessee Williams, April 25, 1950 #Avedon100
On Richard Avedon's Centennial, my favourite portraits
Buster Keaton, 1952 #Avedon100
I'm listening to Concerto Italiano play Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, in their 2005 recording under Rinaldo Alessandrini.
I've always loved the cover photo; it's by Julia Fullerton-Batten. I'll start a thread of some of my favourites of her photos here. π§΅
Julia Fullerton-Batten
The Lady of Shalott, 2018
... which is, of course, a reinterpretation of John Waterhouse's 1888 painting of Lord Tennyson's poem.
Happy birthday Sofia Coppola π
π· Kate Barry
"Coppola is a true auteur β a filmmaker with a distinct worldview and sensibility and a personal set of quasi-autobiographical interests."
- J. Hoberman
Sofia with her dad on the set of Godfather 2
π· Steve Schapiro, 1974
The Coppola family by Ted Streshinsky, 1974
Eleanor & Francis Ford Coppola with their kids Sofia, Roman & Gian-Carlo
Celebrate the Red Garland Centennial ππ―
π· Bill Spilka, c. 1957
"Garland's style was understated and harmonically sophisticated; he would delineate a melody, then shade it with distinctively voiced block chords and hints of counterpoint."
- Jon Pareles #RedGarland100
Esmond Edwards' great album cover for Red Garland's "Red in Bluesville", from 1959. Edwards took the photo, & designed the album as well.
Remembering Bea Arthur on her birthday π
π· Martin Mills, 1972
"Those of us working with her knew we were working with a golden comedic touch." - Norman Lear
Beatrice Arthur with Bill Callaway & Carl Ballantine in Bruce Jay Friedman & Richard Adler's musical A Mother's Kisses
π· Jack Mitchell, 1968
Angela Lansbury & Beatrice Arthur in Mame
π· Friedman-Abeles, 1966
Arthur won the Best Featured Actress in a Musical Tony for her performance. She was Beatrice on the stage & Bea on TV.