This article contains affiliate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission.Lillian Bassman—the Avant-Garde Photographer Who Transformed Harper’s Bazaar—Finally Gets Her Due

Stephanie SpornMon, May 4, 2026 at 5:23 PM UTC

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Inside the Lillian Bassman Exhibit at the MetCourtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The early 20th century marked a turning point for the print magazine. In Europe, Constructivists and Bauhaus artists were leading the charge, introducing a media revolution where the traditional boundaries of graphic design were shattered in favor of bold and unusual spreads. Imagery and words literally broke borders, making the page a canvas of possibilities.

Hoping to inject the dynamism and innovation of European publications into American magazines, Russian-émigré Alexey Brodovitch led a revolution of his own while serving as the art director of Harper’s Bazaar from 1934–1958. Working alongside editor-in-chief Carmel Snow and legendary editor Diana Vreeland, Brodovitch ignited an aesthetic transformation at the magazine, which embraced avant-garde image-makers and talents, such as Lillian Bassman, who was just 24 when she accepted a design job there. “There is a sense of levity and freedom as you flip through the pages of Harper’s Bazaar during the late ’30s, early ’40s,” says Virginia McBride, Assistant Curator in the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “The text and the pictures are liberated from these strict formulas and blocks, and they start to come to life. There’s a great deal of kineticism and synthesis, and at times it feels almost like the stills of a film that unfold as you turn the pages.”

On view through July 26, Lillian Bassman: Bazaar and Beyond is McBride’s latest curatorial endeavor, which examines Bassman’s immense creative legacy at Harper’s Bazaar, Junior Bazaar (the magazine’s little-sister spinoff), and as an independent photographer whose darkroom manipulations still feel radical today. Produced in close collaboration with Bassman’s children, Lizzie and Eric Himmel, the exhibition was made possible thanks to a transformative gift of 70 works from the artist’s estate. The show represents a homecoming for Bassman, who once claimed she and her husband, the photographer Paul Himmel, “were only interested in getting our education from The Met. That’s where I immersed myself in fashion.” Bassman also staged shoots in its hallowed galleries.

Junior Bazaar, December 1945. Design by Lillian Bassman (American, 1917–2012) and Alexey Brodovitch (American (born former Russian Empire, now Belarus),1898–1971), featuring photography by Leslie Gill (American, 1908–1958). Collection of Vince Aletti. Courtesy of Harper’s BAZAAR/Hearst Magazine Media, Inc.Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

“They spoke time and time again about the way visiting the museum trained their eyes as photographers, and how the museum’s presentation of the whole history of art shaped their sense of what photography could do,” says McBride of the couple’s “lifelong love” of the museum. The curator notes Bassman was especially fond of the European Paintings galleries and El Greco’s works. “In general, Bassman was most drawn to the painterly treatment of fabric. She wanted to attend to these details as closely in her photography as her predecessors had in painting.”

Conveniently located down the hall from the Met’s Raphael blockbuster (a kismet placement when considering the photographer’s reverence for the Old Masters), Bassman’s exhibition is small in comparison but mighty in its own right. Born in 1917 and raised in the Bronx, Bassman always led an unconventional existence, whether it was designing her own clothing, working as a nude model for the Art Students League, assisting on murals for the Works Progress Administration, or simply aspiring to be an illustrator. In 1940, her portfolio earned her a spot in Brodovitch’s design course at the New School for Social Research, followed by an unpaid apprenticeship at Harper’s Bazaar. Over the next two decades she’d work her way up to art director, where she became synonymous with idiosyncratic spreads, lively imagery, and unusual, colorful graphic treatments.

Lillian Bassman (American, 1917–2012)Harper’s Bazaar cover maquette, 1949. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Lizzie and EricHimmel, 2025 © Estate of Lillian BassmanCourtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

“Because Bassman was constantly thinking about how the images would play with the other components of the magazine, the photograph itself was really a starting point for her, rather than the end-all-be-all. “She took things into the darkroom and continued to rework the picture and manipulate it,” says McBride, who made it a priority in the exhibition to showcase spreads alongside the original images in order to illustrate Bassman’s marked intentionality, editorial savvy and daring photographic experimentation.

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Making images increasingly abstract, thanks to tissues, brushes, bleach, and more darkroom distortions, Bassman often walked the line between artistic expression and satisfying the magazine’s commercial needs. “She believed to make truly inventive pictures, one needs to risk potentially disappointing the advertisers or the editors,” says McBride. The exhibition’s introductory wall text begins with a provocation: “Can fashion photography be dangerous?” reflecting the mixed feedback Bassman received. In 1950, when Bassman submitted The Yellow Smocked Coat and Yellow Linen Etched in Black, both prints whose subjects had been reduced to mere silhouettes, Brodovitch called them “dangerous.”

Lillian Bassman: Bazaar and Beyond Lillian Bassman (American, 1917–2012)Variant of The Wonders of Water 1959 Platinum print, ca. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Lizzie and EricHimmel, 2025 © Estate of Lillian BassmanCourtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

“One imagines that this is a compliment as much as a warning coming from Brodovitch because he relished bold and creative visual gestures and had encouraged her to pursue this kind of work on her own,” says McBride. “I particularly like this idea that the stakes, even in the world of fashion, can be very high. Brodovitch had seen firsthand how the visual experiments of these creative artists abroad had helped to foment social transformation, and so one wonders what the possibilities are, even in the pages of a fashion magazine, to change aesthetic norms. Lillian’s work does that at every turn.”

Often Bassman’s work appeared in the back of the magazine, or she was skipped when assigning the most glamorous couture pieces to photograph—a reverse compliment of sorts. “She had a reputation among her peers for being able to make almost anything look good in front of the camera, and so consequently we see her photographing some of the stranger and less covetable garments,” says McBride. Of note are Bassman’s entrancing images of lingerie, where the models are strategically blurred, rendering the image more about figure, form, and gesture.

As co-art director of Junior Bazaar (a title she formally shared with Brodovitch) from 1945–1948, Bassman’s creative freedom was expressed with fewer restrictions. After the conclusion of the Second World War, there were less obligations to advertisers and designers, as the fashion industry was recalibrating. The exhibition includes a tear sheet of the inaugural Junior Bazaar cover in 1945, which features a photograph by a young Richard Avedon, Bassman’s close friend and collaborator. This also marked Avedon’s first-ever cover shot.

Lillian Bassman (American, 1917–2012)Summer Supplements: Daytime Editions, 1959 Gelatin silver print. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Lizzie and EricHimmel, 2025© Estate of Lillian BassmanCourtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Avedon was one of many emerging talents that Bassman supported, and in turn, who encouraged Bassman to pursue a career as an independent photographer, which she did after quitting Junior Bazaar in 1948 (when sales flatlined, a new editor was hired, prompting her frustration). She soon secured her own commercial accounts, including commissions for Harper’s Bazaar. In the exhibition, a series of romantic photographs capturing the spring collections in Paris in 1949 features the characteristic elegance and atmospheric blur that would become Bassman’s calling card. Also not to miss is a telegram Avedon wrote to Bassman responding to this series and praising her as his “favorite photographer.”

Part of what makes Bassman’s career so fascinating is her resurgence as a photographer during the 1990s. After she stepped away from the field during the late 1960s, her friend—the art historian Martin Harrison—suggested she revisit her earlier material, which he stumbled upon while visiting her home. Bassman recovered her negatives and reprinted them, amplifying the abstraction to her heart’s content. Untethered to commercial entities, Bassman achieved new freedom and fame by pushing her darkroom experiments further while also teaching herself Photoshop to digitally manipulate images.

“In the world of photography, new technology presents so many possibilities, yet sometimes it can also seem like a threat to what has come before,” says McBride. “We are currently on the verge of so many technological revolutions, it’s a good reminder that someone like Lillian, in her 90s, was adopting these new approaches with enthusiasm and a spirit of invention.”

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