We featured Philippe Halsman’s iconic jump images last week, but we could only let a few days go by before we brought up his series on Dali’s moustache.
Halsman and Salvador Dali were very close in that they both tried to push the boundaries of perception and imagination, as far as science and existing technology would allow. They also both escaped to the U.S. from Paris in the early 1940’s, and left the war behind to reach New York barely a few months apart from each other. Having frequented nearly the same localities in Paris, it was strange that they had never met, and sheer serendipity that they got together in New York for what is considered to be one of the most intense and ambitious collaborations between an artist and a photographer over 37 years.
Such was their relationship that Halsman has been quoted as saying – Whenever I needed a striking protagonist for one of my wild ideas, Dali would graciously oblige. Whenever Dali thought of a photograph so strange that it seemed impossible to produce, I tried to find a solution.
We are delighted to present our favourites from Dali’s Moustache, a 1954 publication of 36 different views of the artist’s moustache that Halsman captured
Along with being a remarkable portrait photographer with 101 Life magazine covers to his credit, and jump images of nearly every US celebrity of his time, we’re inspired by Halsman’s ability to hit the nail on the head when he says that ‘ a true portrait is the image which reveals most completely both the exterior and the interior of the subject. A true portrait should, today and a hundred years from today, be the testimony of how this person looked and what kind of human being he was.’
We couldn’t agree more.
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