Hans Namuth portraits

Hans Namuth was one of the greatest photographers of artists.

"His oeuvre - at least the part of it that was most important to him - is a forty-year chronicle, mainly of artists, but also of architects, writers, and musicians, who have made significant contributions to recent American cultural history."
- Carolyn Kinder Carr

Self-portrait, 1966. Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.

Jasper Johns by Hans Namuth, 1962

Hans Namuth's spectacular portrait of Andy Warhol in front of a Rubens painting, 1982. It's "The Reconciliation of the Queen and her Son", from his Marie de' Medici cycle (early 1620s), now in the Louvre.

Marisol Escobar by Hans Namuth, 1964

Robert Motherwell & Helen Frankenthaler. A lovely portrait of a special couple, by Hans Namuth for Vogue, 1964.

Robert Rauschenberg & Hummingbird Takahashi by Hans Namuth, 1971. Hummingbird was the son of Rauschenberg's assistant.

Hans Namuth's shot of Mark Rothko, from 1964, is in retrospect very sad. As the painter himself said, 'There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend: one day, the black will swallow the red.'

Sam Francis by Hans Namuth, 1989

Hans Namuth's shot of Jackson Pollock & Lee Krasner at their home in East Hampton, Long Island, 1940s.

Jackson Pollock by Hans Namuth, 1950.

“In the studio Pollock was wholly articulate - with his body, arm, wrist, & eye dancing over the canvas on the floor. What might have seemed at the time brutal, a war dance, now seems to me sheer lyricism.”

- Robert Motherwell

Jackson Pollock by Hans Namuth, 1951

"The public image of Pollock as a brooding, volatile flinger of paint is in large part derived from Namuth's films & photographs of him, so much so that it is possible to say the two men's careers will forever be intertwined."

- Andy Grundberg

Larry Rivers & Frank O'Hara by Hans Namuth, 1958

Like Frank O'Hara & Jackson Pollock, Hans Namuth was killed in a Long Island car crash: Pollock in 1956, O'Hara in 1966, Namuth in 1990.

Clyfford Still by Hans Namuth, 1951

Stephen Sondheim by Hans Namuth, 1960. The great composer died a year ago yesterday. RIP

John Cage by Hans Namuth, 1963

Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock & Tony Smith by Hans Namuth, 1951.

"Namuth was to artists what Audubon was to birds."

- Sarah Boxer

The combination of Louise Nevelson's monochromatic sculpture & her own splash of bright colour is a gift to a photographer. Hans Namuth isn't going to miss out on this! From 1977.

Helen Frankenthaler by Hans Namuth, 1987

Recommended: Hans Namuth Portraits, 1999

Henri Cartier-Bresson portraits

Here are some of my favourite portraits by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Jean Anouilh by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, 1947

Ezra Pound by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1971

HCB remembers his meeting with Pound as "nothing but a very long silence. It seemed to last for hours."

Henri Cartier-Bresson,  Our cat Ulysses and Martine's shadow, 1989

Martine was another very fine photographer, Martine Franck, HCB's wife from 1970 until his death in 2004.

Georges Braque by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1947

Malcolm X by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1961

Paul Valéry by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1945

This is one of my all-time favourite photographs.

Tony Hancock by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1962

Jean-Paul Sartre by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Le Pont des Arts, Paris, 1946

"One feels the weight of their thoughts, but it is the sense of silence, the lack of any imagined sound, that shrouds this image in mystery."

- Philip Brookman

Simone de Beauvoir by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1945

"She stands at an angle, pushing right on the surface of the picture, sharply focused against a background that dissolves into an almost abstract scene of three anonymous figures passing each other on the street"

- Philip Brookman

Samuel Beckett by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1964

Martine Franck & Henri Cartier-Bresson by Rene Burri, 2002

The two got together in the late 1950s. "Martine," he said to her, "I want to come and see your contact sheets."

Henri Cartier-Bresson by Inge Morath, Munich, 1953

"When you are with Henri it’s hard to photograph because he would see it first, & you can’t do the same thing. Nothing escaped his lens." 

Henri Cartier-Bresson by Carl Van Vechten, April 20, 1935

Henri Cartier-Bresson by Arnold Newman, 1947

Vladimir Nabokov said HCB's eyes were "like darts, sharp and clever, limpidly blue and infinitely agile."

Recommended: An Inner Silence: The Portraits of Henri Cartier-Bresson, 2006

Horst P. Horst portraits

My favourite portraits by Horst P. Horst. He's best known as a fashion photographer, but his portraits show great psychological insight. He was at home, of course, with the "smart set", but also among theatrical folk and intellectuals.

Babe Paley for Vogue, 1946

"Mrs. P. had only one fault: she was perfect; otherwise, she was perfect."

- Truman Capote

Louis Jourdan for Vogue, 1946

Alberto Moravia for Vogue

Horst P. Horst's Vogue portrait of Gloria Vanderbilt from 1942. The 18-year-old is wearing one of Howard Greer's "table top dresses", designed to look good in magazine shots like this.

Carlos Chávez for Vogue, 1946

Lisa Fonssagrives and Irving Penn, 1951

Horst P. Horst's self-portrait with Gertrude Stein (with a painting of her poodle Basket), 1946

Jessica Tandy for Vogue, 1939

Horst P. Horst's wonderful portrait of the late Ned Rorem, from 1956. #RIP 

Truman Capote for Vogue, November 1965

Cy Twombly with his 1928 Alfa Romeo in the courtyard of his apartment in a palazzo in Rome, Vogue, 1966

Loretta Young by Horst P. Horst, modern print from original negative, 1941

National Portrait Gallery, London

Edith Sitwell by Horst P. Horst, modern print from original negative, 1948

National Portrait Gallery, London

Roy Lichtenstein by Horst P. Horst, modern print from original negative, 1978

National Portrait Gallery, London

Duran Duran by Horst P. Horst, modern print from original negative, 1986

National Portrait Gallery, London

A great shot of Horst P. Horst photographing Carmen Dell’Orefice, by Leonard McCombe, 1947

A great portrait of Horst P. Horst by Michael Somoroff, from his book A Moment. Master Photographers: Portraits by Michael Somoroff

Horst P. Horst by John Swannell, Iris print, 1986

National Portrait Gallery, London