The Nine Lives of Lillian Bassman

Colleague to Alexey Brodovitch, friend to Richard Avedon and Irving Penn … an exhibition in New York celebrates the postwar fashion photographer and art director

By Ruth Peltason

She was barely five feet tall and wore her hair pulled back in a bun or short ponytail, or a little of both. She tended to wear Keds (usually red), was raised by bohemian immigrant parents in Greenwich Village, and at 24 became an acolyte and, later, a colleague of the mercurial Alexey Brodovitch. She worked under Carmel Snow at Harper’s Bazaar, gave Richard Avedon his first magazine cover when she was art director at Junior Bazaar (they also became close friends), and mixed with fellow up-and-comers such as Irving Penn and George Hoyningen-Huene. One of the most innovative READ ON