Remembering Francis Poulenc on his birthday π
π· Boris Lipnitzki, c. 1930
"As the decades pass, he grows in stature, and his aloofness from musical party politics matters less."
- @alexrossmusic
A great photograph by Boris Lipnitzki from the garden of Charles de Noailles's hotel in Paris, 1932. Igor Markevitch, Charles Koechlin, Francis Poulenc, Georges Auric & Henri Sauguet.
Francis Poulenc by Fred Plaut, early 1960s.
Plaut was the great Columbia recording engineer who also took fabulous photographs (most notably of Glenn Gould).
Fred Plaut's wife was the soprano Rose Dercourt, who happened to be a close friend of Francis Poulenc. So his LP cover photo from 1963 has the intimacy of family friendship.
Francis Poulenc & Arnold Schoenberg, in a photo taken by Darius Milhaud, 1922
Milhaud comments:
"He invited us to his home in MΓΆdling. We had a wonderful afternoon there. The walls of his apartment were full of pictures that he had painted himself: faces & eyes, everywhere eyes!β
Les Six, more or less, by Boris Lipnitzki, 1931.
Francis Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre, (Jean Cocteau), Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger & Darius Milhaud. Georges Auric was missing, but Cocteau adds a drawing.
Boris Lipnitzki took some great shots of Les Six at a December 1951 reunion in Paris.
A fairly formal photo of Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger, Germaine Tailleferre, Francis Poulenc & Louis Durey, with Jean Cocteau at the piano.
But best are the informal photos from Boris Lipnitzki's 1951 Les Six photoshoot:
Poulenc greets Milhaud
I love this shot!
Les Six by Boris Lipnitzki, Paris, December 1951.
Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger, Germaine Tailleferre & Louis Durey in the back, & up front, Francis Poulenc & Jean Cocteau on either side of Darius Milhaud, who seems to have nodded off.
Boris Lipnitzki tries to get Les Six + Jean Cocteau together for a portrait, 1951. Like herding cats...
An earlier photo of Francis Poulenc by Boris Lipnitzki. Francis can often seem a bit stern when he gets in front of a camera, so it's nice to see him more relaxed. The Getty caption says 1929.
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.