George Platt Lynes

 1907-1955

(ISBN: 382286403X)

David Leddick

 Koln: Taschen, 2000.

Folio - over 12" - 15" tall.

Hard Cover [239pps]

Fine / Fine

Trilingual text. (German, English & French)

Foreword by Anatole Pohorilenko.

George Platt Lynes was a brilliant craftsman and master of composition, whether of his portraits of famous people such as Thomas Mann, Igor Stravinsky and Gertrude Stein, or his stunningly vivid documentation of the New York City Ballet. This skill and passion for his subjects made him enormously successful in the 30s and 40s, when he featured in all the leading fashion magazines of the day --- Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and others. But Platt Lynes was also a myth-maker, with a photographic obsession that sadly remained unpublicised until after his death. Working with his male nude models, he was able to transcend time and place, simultaneously glancing back to Greek mythology and athleticism, and looking forward to the modern, urban eroticism of Robert Mapplethorpe and Bruce Weber. In this book, the whole range of his work is brought together for the first time, contrasting his public face with his expertise in a hitherto unappreciated field of activity --- the male body.