Remembering Claude Monet on his birthday 🎂
📷 Nickolas Muray, Giverny, 1926 @EastmanMuseum
"What an eye Monet has, the most prodigious eye since painting began! I raise my hat to him."
- Paul Cézanne
In June of 1926 the Hungarian-born American photographer Nickolas Muray visited Claude Monet at his home in Giverny. You can tell that he's a big fan!
Nickolas Muray & a colleague arrive at Claude Monet's Giverny Estate in June of 1926. For some reason, they have a chauffeur-driven Bentley.
Always a shock when someone from so long ago looks this cool.
Claude Monet by Nickolas Muray, 1926 @EastmanMuseum
"I have a dream a picture of the bathing spot at the Grenouillere, for which I've made a few poor sketches, but it is a dream. Renoir, who has just spent two months here, also wants to do this painting."
Claude Monet, La Grenouillère, 1869 @Metmuseum
Claude Monet, Morning on the Seine near Giverny, 1897 @metmuseum
"It seems to me, when I see nature, that I see it ready made, completely written — but then, try to do it!"
John Singer Sargent
Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood, c. 1885 @Tate
"To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at."
- Claude Monet
Bathers at La Grenouillère, 1869 @NationalGallery
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A thread of photos by Ralph Morse, another great Life magazine photographer. 🧵
Stickball in Spanish Harlem, 1947
Ralph Morse
Audrey Hepburn with her Best Actress #Oscar, for Roman Holiday, March 1955
A French resistance fighter takes aim at a German sniper attacking a crowd during a tour by Charles De Gaulle, following the liberation of Paris.
A spectacular photo by Ralph Morse for Life magazine, August 1944
Remembering William Steig on his birthday 🎂
📷 Jill Krementz, 1973
"The Erotic has always been implicit in Steig's work. Like Picasso, Steig celebrates the body both in ripeness and decay."
- Brendan Gill, Here at the New Yorker
William Steig
September 23, 1985
A great @NewYorker cover on William Steig's birthday. Well-timed, as I'm keeping an eye on a bunch of NFL games this afternoon. Go @Lions!
William Steig
December 31, 1955
One of my favourites: a Top 10 @NewYorker cartoon
Remembering Veronica Lake on her birthday 🎂
She was so good in Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels, 1941.
I was absurdly pleased to find out this outfit was designed by Edith Head, who did the costumes for the film. Great shot by Talmadge Morrison, the on set still photographer
A lovely shot by Talmadge Morrison of Joel McCrea & Veronica Lake, in Preston Sturges's Sullivan's Travels, 1941
It must have been a relief for Edith Head to move on to this scene.
Veronica Lake by George Hurrell, 1941
Glamour is one thing, but look at Lake's eyes in this shot. Hurrell is searching for character here, & finding it.
Remembering Louise Brooks on her birthday 🎂
📷 Eugene Robert Richee, 1923
"Brooks is a flame fluttering in the wind of her own breath."
- David Thomson
Louise Brooks by Eugene Robert Richee, 1928
"The only star actress I can imagine either being enslaved by or wanting to enslave; and a dark lady worthy of any poet's devotion."
- Kenneth Tynan
A spectacular portrait of Louise Brooks by Eugene Robert Richee, 1928
Herbert Mitgang notes in his 1985 @NYTimes obituary:
"She told Mr. Tynan that she had never been in love, was supported at various times by several millionaires, but declined to marry them."
Remembering Aaron Copland on his birthday 🎂
📷 Irving Penn, 1979
"He has never turned out bad work, nor worked without an inspiration. His stance is that not only of a professional but also of an artist - responsible, prepared, giving of his best."
- Virgil Thomson
An undated portrait of Aaron Copland by the composer David Diamond, who was a fine photographer.
"By having sold out to the mongrel commercialists half-way already, the danger is going to be wider for you, and I beg you dear Aaron, don't sell out entirely yet."
Aaron Copland by George Platt Lynes (undated) @BeineckeLibrary
"The composer who is frightened of losing his artistic integrity through contact with a mass audience is no longer aware of the meaning of the word art."
Another thread of a favourite photographer: Life magazine's Carl Mydans 🧵
Here with his Contax camera in a great shot by his colleague Andreas Feininger, 1942
Vladimir Nabokov by Carl Mydans
Ithaca, New York, September 1958