Thursday, March 14, 2013

There are a few who believe that if it isn’t on the web it does not exist or will never exist.

Photo by Philippe Halsman, 1967

Until US chess grand master Bobby Fischer died on January 18, 2008 few knew what he looked like, particularly as seen by Latvian-born master photographer (my hero!) Philippe Halsman. His portrait of Fischer I had in an old issue of Popular Photography and in Halsman’s photo book, Halsman Portraits – Selected and Edited by Yvonne Halsman – 1983. Halsman died in 1979 and his wife Yvonne in 2006. Until 2006 Yvonne Halsman was a close protector of her husband’s photographic record and copyright and few Halsman portraits slipped by her. One that did was her husband’s famous portrait of Albert Einstein that to this day is on the front of many T-shirts.

I have written about the Bobby Fischer portrait which I consider to be as close to perfection as any that any photographer has ever taken. You can see it here. In second picture below click twice to read what Halsman says about his Fischer photograph.

Imagine my surprise when I recently received an email from a conscientious researcher who will place (I am sometimes resistant to the term “publish”) on an on line magazine/webpage. The researcher had found this blog of mine and wanted to use the portrait of Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin taken by Philippe Halsman. The body of the conscientious researcher’s email contained this: Are you sure the photo of de Chardin is by Phillipe Hallsman? I am trying to publish one and they say they cannot find this particular photograph.

Popular Photography August 1977

One of the reasons for the apparent problem, besides the fact that the conscientious researcher had misspelled Halsman’s name (it could have been solved by a conscientious research that would not have exceeded a few minutes), is that few of Halsman’s photographs have been up until recent times because of his wife’s dogged and heroic defense of the copyright.

My concern today is that this poor blogger has been consulted for a smidgen of information that is out there and as close as a public library that would have Halsman’s book in its collections.

But as I pointed out in the beginning: There are a few who believe that if it isn’t on the web it does not exist or will never exist.

We can now add: Hard copy books in libraries are dead.

Of the photo that you see here scanned from my copy of the book Halsman at Work, wife Yvonne writes: After a complicated and difficult sitting in the studio when Philippe used two ladders for the job, he had this idea for our 1967 Christmas card.

Halsman 01
Halsman 02
Halsman 03
Halsman 04
Halsman 05
Halsman 06