The Beauty Message

1965

Not on view

In beauty stories, Bassman dramatized the ritual of mundane routines. Her camera lingered on long necks and attenuated fingers, poised here as if before a mirror. Works like this, for Town and Country, may seem to anticipate the aesthetic performance of contemporary "self-care," but they take cues from the history of art.

As young adults, Bassman and her husband spent much of their free time at The Met. She credits her preoccupation with gesture to long hours in the paintings galleries, where artists like El Greco captured her eye. "For me, it was always the very long throats, the slightly sloping shoulders, and the hands that moved beautifully," she recalled. "When I started to shoot, this is what I looked for."

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Provenance

Title: The Beauty Message
Artist: Lillian Bassman (American, Brooklyn, New York 1917–2012 New York)
Date: 1965
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: 9 1/8 × 12 5/8 in. (23.2 × 32.1 cm)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Gift of Lizzie and Eric Himmel, 2025
Object Number: 2025.889.40
Rights and Reproduction: © Estate of Lillian Bassman
Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

By Lillian Bassman

In the same medium

["This Is the Enemy" Poster Maquette], Lillian Bassman, Collage of gelatin silver prints with applied media — ["This Is the Enemy" Poster Maquette]
Lillian Bassman
Alexey Brodovitch
1942

[The Great Wave, Sète], Gustave Le Gray French, Albumen silver print from glass negative — [The Great Wave, Sète]
Gustave Le Gray
1857

"Do American Girls Like Freedom?" in Junior Bazaar, Lillian Bassman, Photomechanical reproduction — "Do American Girls Like Freedom?" in Junior Bazaar
Multiple artists/makers
July 1947

The Big White Cloud, Lake George, Edward J. Steichen American, born Luxembourg, Direct carbon print — The Big White Cloud, Lake George
Edward J. Steichen
1903, printed 1904

[Tear Sheet of Junior Bazaar Contents and Masthead], Lillian Bassman — [Tear Sheet of Junior Bazaar Contents and Masthead]
Art Director Lillian Bassman
Publisher The Hearst Corporation
February 1948

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