About UsPhilippe Halsman was an American portrait photographer. He was born in Riga in the part of the Russian Empire which later became Latvia, and died in New York City, Born: May 2, 1906. Died: June 25, 1979.In September 1928, 22-year-old Halsman was accused of his father's murder while they were on a hiking trip in the Austrian Tyrol, an area rife with antisemitism. After a trial based on circumstantial evidence he was sentenced to four years of prison. His family, friends and barristers worked for his release, getting support from important European intellectuals including Freud, Einstein, Thomas Mann, Henri Hertz, and Paul Painlevé, who endorsed his innocence. He was pardoned and released in 1930.[1]
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My father was a dentist, and my mother gave up her profession as a teacher when I was born. This event, so important for me, happened on May 2, 1906, in Riga, Latvia.
Riga was a highly civilized old city of 300,000 inhabitants. It had museums, an opera, three repertory theaters, and a ballet. It was in Riga that the philosopher Immanuel Kant published his Critique of Pure Reason. I had only one sister, Liouba, a few years younger than I, and we were very close. Our summer vacations were spent with our parents in Europe. Before I was eighteen, thanks to these travels, I was familiar with most of the important museums in Europe – where I was particularly affected by the portraits. |
Our History |
AutobiographyMy father was a dentist, and my mother gave up her profession as a teacher when I was born. This event, so important for me, happened on May 2, 1906, in Riga, Latvia.
Riga was a highly civilized old city of 300,000 inhabitants. It had museums, an opera, three repertory theaters, and a ballet. It was in Riga that the philosopher Immanuel Kant published his Critique of Pure Reason. I had only one sister, Liouba, a few years younger than I, and we were very close. Our summer vacations were spent with our parents in Europe. Before I was eighteen, thanks to these travels, I was familiar with most of the important museums in Europe – where I was particularly affected by the portraits. I caught the photography virus at the age of fifteen, when I discovered an old view-camera in our attic. My father had acquired the camera to use in his spare time, but had eventually stored it away. With my allowance money I bought myself a book which explained that I had to buy glass plates because at that time there was no film being used in Europe. I bought a dozen and photographed my sister near the window. I developed the first plate in our bathroom by the light of a ruby-red bulb. It was one of the most magical moments of my life. In the dim red light I watched, wide-eyed, a miracle: the gradual appearance of dark outlines on the milky surface of my plate – forming the first photographic image I had ever taken. From then on, most of my pocket money went into my new hobby. I became the family photographer. On our trips it was I who took the usual kind of travel photos. But mostly I photographed my friends, my girlfriends, and the girlfriends of my friends. It was their faces that I tried to portray. Now, thinking back, I find it symptomatic. This fascination with the human face has never left me. Every face I see seems to hide – and sometimes fleetingly to reveal – the mystery of another human being. Later, capturing this revelation became the goal and the passion of my life. I became a collector of the reflections of the innermost self of the people who faced my camera. |