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Alexey Brodovitch
"Layout Photography"
Alexey Brodovitch's name is very much part of the history of 20th century
photography. For more than twenty years, from 1934 to 1958, as Art
Director for Harper's Bazaar, he played an influential role in the
development of forms and layout techniques in photography. He considered
photography in a creative manner and as being relative to the space on the
printed page; he would juggle with the visual content and its focusing to
create subtle combinations with the typography and establish the principle
of dynamism within a double page as well as a certain rhythm in the
succession of pages that followed.
The extent of the experiments undertaken by Brodovitch for Harper's Bazaar
will never be evaluated enough, with photographs such as Martin Munkacsi,
Man Ray, George Hoyningen-Huene or Erwin Blumenfeld; he worked closely with
Lillian Bassman and Louise Dahl-Wolfe and accompanied Richard Avedon and
Hiro at the beginning of their careers. He was also open to the works of
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bill Brandt, Lisette Model, André Kertèsz and
Brassaļ, today considered as the masters of modern photography.
The exhibition has been organised so that this work can be readable within
the space of a magazine page as well as that of certain books such as
"Observations" by Richard Avedon, and with an ambitious graphic dimension,
the review "Portfolio". Brodovitch also created page layouts for his own
images that can be appreciated in what is a very rare book today, entitled
"Ballet". His creations are still as inventive and pure as ever.
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