In the 1940’s working as a graphic designer she was ‘discovered’ for her visual talent by Photographer Richard Avedon and encouraged towards a career in photography.

Her sophisticated style evolved and was bold, moody and elegantly expressed in fashion photography in Harper’s Bazzaar from the late 1940s to the early 1960s’. Her romantic images revolutionized fashion photography and her talent was highly sought after. Vanity Fair magazine singled her out as one of photography’s “grand masters”. ‘Full of mystery, sensuality, and expressionistic glamour, Bassman’s dramatic black and white photographs capture secret moments and dream memories’.

Bassman told The New York Times in a 1997 interview that she wanted to “take the hardness out of the photography” in order to make it less literal, which she accomplished using darkroom techniques such as bleaching, dodging and burning, and selective focus.

Over the ensuing 25 years, Bassman shot a wide variety of consumer ads–“everything that could be photographed,” she told The New York Times–but especially glamorous models for lingerie advertising. She frequently shot fashion spreads for Harper’s Bazaar as well.

In the 1970s, Bassman was discourage with the changing fashion industry and high-maintenance models, “I got sick of them,” she told The Times in 2009. “They were becoming superstars. They were not my kind of models. They were dictating rather than taking direction.” Disappointed with the profession she abruptly closed her studio, abandoned photography – destroyed her commercial negatives and dumped the editorial ones in binliners in a nook of her home. Instead, for private satisfaction, she photographed semi-abstracts.

For years her famous dramatic images stayed dormant. And then in the early 1990’s a friend of hers discovered her long lost negatives and encouraged her to pursue photography again. With the passage of years she was ready to redefine her photography work.

At 87 years old her interest in darkroom techniques transferred into a fascination for Photoshop and she embraced the digital and began creating interesting effects and variations of images she had captured years ago. Her reinterpretations, as she called them, found a new generation of admirers.

These reinterpretations were so admired that she returned to photograph the Paris collections for the New York Times magazine in 1996, and worked for Vogue until 2004. She had exhibitions across Europe and in the US. Books of her “painting with light” were published in 1997 (Lillian Bassman), 2009 (Lillian Bassman: Women) and this year (Lillian Bassman: Lingerie).

Lillian Bassman who passed away last year in February at age 94, is truly an inspirational artist. In an era where women were not recognized in the arts and design, she was. And as an 87-year old woman she embraced digital, learned technical skills and revitalized her work in a new way.

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Milton Glaser live a long and creative life, and died at the age of 91. He emerged as a prolific purveyor of visual culture in the 1960s. Glaser’s brand of graphic design distinctively captured the spirit of the psychedelic sixties. Bob Dylan, The Rolling stones, and The Beatles were all packaged in concert poster and vinyl records with Glaser’s groovy blend of comic book colors and clear-cut images. Glaser’s catalogue of designs certainly convey a Warholesque blending of abstract expressionism with everyday items and the icons of the time. Similar to Andy Warhol, Glaser redefined the Western conception of Popular Art that appealed to the media culture. Graphic design emerged as a standard of twentieth century art due to Glaser’s contribution to advertising popular culture. However, to exemplify the lingering influence of Glaser’s work within the frame of modern culture, his biography will be slightly explored.

Born in the late 1920s in New York City, Glaser graduated from the Cooper Union institute with a degree in graphic design and paved his way as an illustrator during the rise of television culture in the 1950s. Glaser co-founded Push Pin Studios with a group of his fellow Cooper Union graduates and experimentally changed the scope of both graphic design and visual art.

From Bob Dylan to I love New York

Essentially, Glaser sought to redefine the breadth of Modern Art during his early period. Glaser translated the burgeoning counterculture as his fame increased throughout the 1960s. Glaser’s technique of superimposing, or layering, smooth figures with a palette of dynamic colors was famously distinguished in his 1966 print of Bob Dylan. Referred by the Smithsonian as the ‘Sign of the Times,’ Glaser captures the enigmatic persona of Bob Dylan with the blush of psychedelic curls that contrasts his opaque outline. Glaser generated great success after his Dylan portrait was laminated on the cover of his greatest hits compilation, which sold more than six million copies. Glaser’s celebrity heightened as he was contracted to create logos such as the I Heart New York design.

Redefining the Elusive Boundaries of What Constitutes Art

Much in the same way Andy Warhol melded the conventions of high art with popular culture, Glaser expanded the possibilities for graphic designers to infiltrate the economics of the media. Glaser received the National Medal of Arts in 2009, which informs his legacy of pushing the envelope with redefining the elusive boundaries of what constitutes art. Essentially, the twentieth century Postmodern Art movement- which employs techniques such as juxtaposing high culture with low culture, minimal design elements, and collaging different art forms- owes a debt to Glaser for establishing the medium of graphic design within the sphere of Postmodernism.

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