Hannah Shapiro
Cataloguer & Sale Coordinator
Lot 2
Melvin Sokolsky(1933-2022)On the Seine (Simone D'Aillencourt) (for 'Harper's Bazaar')
Jusqu'au 19 février 2025, 12 h 00 UTC-5
En ligne, New YorkUS$4,000 - US$6,000
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Kelly Sidley
Head of Department
Lucie Kessler
Associate Specialist
Melvin Sokolsky (1933-2022)
On the Seine (Simone D'Aillencourt) (for 'Harper's Bazaar'), 1963
Gelatin silver print; the photographer's credit stamp on the reverse.
11 3/4 x 11 3/8 in. (29.8 x 28.9 cm.)
sheet 12 1/8 x 11 3/4 in. (30.8 x 29.8 cm.)
Gelatin silver print; the photographer's credit stamp on the reverse.
11 3/4 x 11 3/8 in. (29.8 x 28.9 cm.)
sheet 12 1/8 x 11 3/4 in. (30.8 x 29.8 cm.)
Footnotes
Literature
Melvin Sokolsky, Paris 1963 / Paris 1965: Signature Edition (Beverly Hills, 2011), p. 31 (variant)
Note
In late 1962, American fashion photographer Melvin Sokolsky received a call from the editor of Harper's Bazaar, who invited him to shoot the Spring Collections in Paris. Understanding the significance of this opportunity, Sokolsky pitched something ambitious and absurd: a series of photographs in which a couture-clad model would float above Paris in a Plexiglas bubble.
Sokolsky's vision for his 'bubble' series stemmed from his childhood exposure to the surreal compositions of Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch. In his notes, he reflected, "[I] found myself spellbound by the detail of a man and woman in a veined caul-like bubble growing from a strange plant. That image in The Garden of Earthly Delights had a profound effect on me — it resulted in a recurring dream of seeing myself in a bubble floating across exotic landscapes."
Sokolsky also found inspiration in the retail fashion industry. While working on this assignment, he noticed a department store display in Manhattan in which small, acrylic bubbles - each one containing a handbag or pair of shoes - were suspended to appear as if floating in space. Sokolsky was so moved by the display that he commissioned the manufacturer to design his own bubble apparatus. The final product consisted of two acrylic hemispheres, fused together with a metal band and hoisted from an aircraft cable tethered to an industrial crane. "I secretly saw it as a Sokolsky aircraft that could fly anywhere on an engine built into the ring," the photographer remarked in a 2019 interview. "It was not a girl captured in a bubble. It was a woman at the helm of her spaceship."
The setting for each shoot often captured disbelieving passersby who marveled at the bubble as if it were a divine entity — dressed in next-season's fashions! — who had descended from the sky. Once a photograph was taken, the image was carefully retouched to remove the presence of the aircraft cable that suspended the bubble. The present work is an early print that features the cable before the image was retouched. This rare photograph provides a behind-the-scenes look into the production of this innovative series.