Variant of The Wonders of Water

When Alexey Brodovitch sent Bassman to make photographs at a high school natatorium, the art director had one demand: her pictures must be horizontal. He planned his Harper’s Bazaar layouts in advance, and, in this one, a swimmer was meant to surge across the magazine spread. Bassman did his bidding but could not resist making a few vertical views as her subject plunged into the pool. Bassman’s version never ran, and half a century passed before she turned to it again. Then, near the　end of her life, she began reinterpreting old work from her archive, unbound by any editorial decree. Realized in platinum at a formidable scale, this rich new print sets the eye aswim.