Sept. 23, 2010- Dali and Halsman

So last weekend for my best friend's birthday, we drove to Atlanta to see the Dali exhibit at the High Museum. I loved looking through each medium of art Dali engaged in, but--surprise!--my favorite part of the exhibit was a gallery of photography featuring photos from the famous Halsman and Dali collaboration. Halsman was famous for his portraiture of celebrities. All are more intimate and real than most other glamour photos from that era. However, I think Halsman's career really took off when he and Dali began to work together. This photo above, In Voluptas Mors, began as a sketch that Dali drew and wanted Halsman to create. They spent days building the structure to hold the girls and tens of hours placing the lighting and models. The structure of women looks effortless and elegant, a little unsettling because of their individual beauty, and yet the gruesome image they make up. Dali in the foreground is perfect, slightly out of focus, mustache a-flying, looking as complex and, well, surreal as ever.

This is Halsman's famous Dali Atomicus. Whenever I first saw most of Halsman's photos, I thought someone had taken vintage photos and photoshopped them to create all the effects his photography features. But no---far more impressive, Halsman created his whimsical scenarios and portraits through hours and hours of carpentry, throwing water (and cats), and making people jump over and over until things clicked. I was astounded by the dedication, time, genius, and eye for detail that went into every one of his photos (and here I was complaining about my 35-shot contact sheet!). I was also amazed by the rightness of their collaboration. Halsman seemed too personal and whimsical for strait celebrity portraiture, and I believe Dali brought out the best in him. And without Halsman, Dali would never have been immortalized or seen in the same way as one of the most bizarre and genius personalities of the modern era.

That said, I also love Halsman's portraits of all the famous figures of his day. They bring honesty through their off-coloredness. Face it--not every person is meant to be captured in the way that many portraiture photographers of the day worked- everyone was highly stylized, beautifully lit, utterly perfect. Those portraits are so beautiful that they are boring. And give little to no sense of the person's true identity. That's what the public really wants to see from portraits--the truth. They want the photos to reveal something no one is supposed to know about that person, or to see that person documented in a new way. This portrait above is of Tippi Hendron. It's a perfect example of Halsman's dedication to bringing whimsy and truth to each portrait.