Philippe Halsman’s portraits of his most illustrious sitters jumping offer an insight into the hidden sides of their characters
Philippe Halsman
"If the photograph of a human being does not show a deep psychological insight, it is not a true portrait but an empty likeness. Therefore my main goal in portraiture is neither composition, nor play of light, nor showing the subject in front of a meaningful background, nor creation of a new visual image. All these elements can make an empty picture a visually interesting image, but in order to be a portrait the photograph must capture the essence of its subject."
- Philippe Halsman
Philippe Halsman was born in Riga in 1906, and began to take photographs in Paris in the 1930s. He opened a portrait studio in Montparnasse in 1934, where he photographed André Gide, Marc Chagall, André Malraux, Le Corbusier, and other writers and artists using an innovative twin-lens reflex camera that he had designed himself. He arrived in the United States in 1940, just after the fall of France, having obtained an emergency visa through the intervention of Albert Einstein.
In the course of his prolific career in America, Halsman produced reportage and covers for most major American magazines, including a record 101 covers for Life magazine. His assignments brought him face-to-face with many of the century’s leading personalities.
In 1945, he was elected the first president of the American Society of Magazine Photographers, where he led the fight for photographers’ creative and professional rights. His work soon won international recognition, and in 1951, he was invited by the founders of Magnum Photos to join the organization as a “contributing member,” so that they could syndicate his work outside the United States. This arrangement still stands.
Halsman began a 37-year collaboration with Salvador Dalí in 1941 which resulted in a stream of unusual “photographs of ideas,” including “Dalí Atomicus” and the “Dalí’s Mustache” series. In the early 1950s, Halsman began to ask his subjects to jump for his camera at the conclusion of each sitting. These uniquely witty and energetic images have become an important part of his photographic legacy.
In 1958, Halsman was voted one of the world’s top 10 photographers in an international poll conducted by Popular Photography. In 1962, he founded the Famous Photographers School alongside Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Alfred Eisenstaedt, and others. And in 1970, he made his 100th Life magazine cover.
Philippe Halsman died in New York City on June 25, 1979.
