Lillian Bassman

Worked in textile design and fashion illustration and studied with Alexey Brodovitch, the art director of Harper's Bazaar, where she later worked. As co-art director of Junior Bazaar she gave Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Arnold Newman and others their starts in fashion photography; later as a freelance photographer, she achieved a distinguished graphic style with her use of darkroom techniques. Left fashion in the 70s and destroyed most of her commercial negatives, turning to abstract and still life photography. In the 90s she re-imagined some of her surviving negatives with Photoshop, which renewed interest in her work and brought about her return to fashion.