Hannah Shapiro
Cataloguer & Sale Coordinator
Lot 26
Melvin Sokolsky(1933-2022)'Bubble in Trees, Paris Collections' (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)
'Bubble in Trees, Paris Collections' (for 'Harper's Bazaar'), 1963
Gelatin silver print, printed later; signed, titled, dated, annotated, and editioned '9/25' in pencil on the reverse, framed, a Fahey/Klein Gallery label on the reverse.
13 x 13 in. (33.1 x 33.1 cm.)
sheet 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm.)
Gelatin silver print, printed later; signed, titled, dated, annotated, and editioned '9/25' in pencil on the reverse, framed, a Fahey/Klein Gallery label on the reverse.
13 x 13 in. (33.1 x 33.1 cm.)
sheet 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm.)
Footnotes
Provenance
Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2005
Literature
Melvin Sokolsky, Paris 1963 / Paris 1965: Signature Edition (Beverly Hills, 2011), p. 39
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."