Two gelatin silver copy prints, printed ca.1960 on Agfa paper, .3 x 27.1cm (8 x 10 5/8in): Acquired directly from the photographer by the previous owner; Private collection, Paris : Alexey Brodovitch Ballet, 1945, pp. 90 and 92having taken photographs since he was a child, Alexey Brodovitch the highly influential art director of Harper's Bazaar and teacher to so many 20th century photographers such as Irving Penn Richard Avedon and Lillian Bassman only made one concentrated body of work - a series of photographs of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo 1935 - 37, from which he made the now highly sought-after book Ballet from. Tragically, nearly all his negatives from the series were destroyed in two house fires so copy prints were made, which is how these two prints came about. "Instead of shooting fast, he shoots slow. In so doing he violates the old rules which say that you must shoot at high speeds if your subjects are in motion. Instead of stopping ballet action in crisp, sharply outlined images, he allows motion itself to 'brush' over his film. Brodovitch is more interested in the fluidity than the sculpture, in the dance than the dancers. ... The strange atmospheric effects, the shimmering qualities, the extraordinary sense of movement justify the means Brodovitch employs. distortions are not so excessive as to lose their ballet identity. Indeed, if anything, the qualities of ballet-the rhythms, fantasy, grace and intensity - are heightened even as they are partially abstracted from the actuality. The bodies of the dancers in motion brush themselves in broad masses of light and shadow on Brodovitch's film. The sense of movement appears thus to be emphasized in the blurred figures. Most of the pictures were shot backstage where Brodovitch made effective use of halations by shooting against footlights, spots and floods, creating an unreal atmosphere of fantasy, certainly not violating the intrinsic nature of ballet which deals with imagery and music....." (Bruce Downes, 'Brodovitch and Ballet,' Popular Photography, vol. 17, no. 3, September 1945, pp. 31, 34.)
Two gelatin silver copy prints, printed ca.1960 on Agfa paper, .3 x 27.1cm (8 x 10 5/8in): Acquired directly from the photographer by the previous owner; Private collection, Paris : Alexey Brodovitch Ballet, 1945, pp. 90 and 92having taken photographs since he was a child, Alexey Brodovitch the highly influential art director of Harper's Bazaar and teacher to so many 20th century photographers such as Irving Penn Richard Avedon and Lillian Bassman only made one concentrated body of work - a series of photographs of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo 1935 - 37, from which he made the now highly sought-after book Ballet from. Tragically, nearly all his negatives from the series were destroyed in two house fires so copy prints were made, which is how these two prints came about. "Instead of shooting fast, he shoots slow. In so doing he violates the old rules which say that you must shoot at high speeds if your subjects are in motion. Instead of stopping ballet action in crisp, sharply outlined images, he allows motion itself to 'brush' over his film. Brodovitch is more interested in the fluidity than the sculpture, in the dance than the dancers. ... The strange atmospheric effects, the shimmering qualities, the extraordinary sense of movement justify the means Brodovitch employs. distortions are not so excessive as to lose their ballet identity. Indeed, if anything, the qualities of ballet-the rhythms, fantasy, grace and intensity - are heightened even as they are partially abstracted from the actuality. The bodies of the dancers in motion brush themselves in broad masses of light and shadow on Brodovitch's film. The sense of movement appears thus to be emphasized in the blurred figures. Most of the pictures were shot backstage where Brodovitch made effective use of halations by shooting against footlights, spots and floods, creating an unreal atmosphere of fantasy, certainly not violating the intrinsic nature of ballet which deals with imagery and music....." (Bruce Downes, 'Brodovitch and Ballet,' Popular Photography, vol. 17, no. 3, September 1945, pp. 31, 34.)
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
