George Platt Lynes (1907 - 1955)

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George Platt Lynes by David Leddick  

With the same masterful lighting and surreal compositions he brought to bear on portrait, dance and fashion photography, George Platt Lynes (1907-1955) created throughout his career a hidden body of marvelous work celebrating the nude male form.

In this newest addition to TASCHEN's award winning Photography Series, author David Leddick divides George Platt Lynes' photography into distinct sections; Portraits, the Ballet, Fashion, Nudes, and Mythology, and meticulously documents the striking work of this influential 20th century photographer.

The Portraits section includes images of so many important, creative men and women including Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, Colette, Gloria Swanson, Igor Stravinsky and Henri Cartier-Bresson, that it is a veritable Who's Who of the cultural elite of Platt Lynes' time.

Platt Lynes' ballet work grew out of an almost life-long association with dance impresario Lincoln Kirstein that dated back to their schooldays. For nearly 20 years, starting in 1933, Platt Lynes' photos documented the fantastically exciting evolution of Kirstein's and George Balanchine's American Ballet Company and recorded for posterity ground-breaking ballets including the '36 Orpheus and Eurydice with magnificent sets and costumes by Pavel Tchelitchew, a decade later the equally revolutionary Orpheus with sets and costumes by Isamu Noguchi, and in '49 the dazzling Firebird, a signature dance of the New York City Ballet.

Platt Lynes fashion photography was extraordinary - using to the fullest dramatic lighting, surreal sets and the most arresting models, he created a body of stunning images that showed couture to its best advantage for clients like Harper's Bazaar and Lord & Taylor.

Finally, in the Nudes and Mythology sections, Platt Lynes' personal passions are truly revealed. Though he did his share of lovely female nudes it is his male nudes that resonate. A photographic obsession that remained secret until after his death, Platt Lynes' work with male nude models transcended time and place, referring back to classical Greek athleticism and forward to the modern urban eroticism of Robert Mapplethorpe and Bruce Weber. Erotic and forthright, these pictures are a passionate celebration of the male form. -- The publisher, Pam Sommers, Public Relations Manager, Taschen America

When We Were Three : The Travel Albums of George Platt Lynes, Monroe Wheeler, and Glenway Wescott 1925-1935 by George Platt Lynes (Photographer), Monroe Wheeler (Photographer), Glenway Wescott

When We Were Three presents photographs the trio took as they traveled the world together during the late '20s and '30s. They are the subjects of many of the images, but the Great Wall of China, an Egyptian sphinx, and their numerous friends--including Stein, Cocteau, Thornton Wilder, and Katherine Anne Porter--are captured, too. Oddly, the subject, date, and location of each photograph are carefully documented, but the photographer is not. Some of the earliest-known Lyne images are here, but it is the biographical essay by Anatole Pohorilenko in the front of the book that calls this out. Still, with its high production value and informative essays by Pohorilenko and James Crump, the book is an enjoyable choice for those interested in early-20th-century photography and the lifestyle of the legendary 1930s American expatriate in Europe. --Jordana Moskowitz

George Platt Lynes

From queer-arts.org

Excerpt:

At the prime of his career during the '30's and '40's, George Lynes, as he was called then, was exceedingly handsome, charming and persuasive. He was also at the epicenter of a circle of powerful homosexual men that exerted influence at New York's artistic institutions. His early mentors were Monroe Wheeler, later the exhibition director at the Museum of Modern Art, and the writer Glenway Wescott, who provided Lynes with social cachet and business connections. An old school mate Lincoln Kirstein, later an arts impresario and a founder of the New York City Ballet, provided Lynes with commissions to photograph both George Balanchine's dances as well as the company's principal artists...

George Platt Lynes

From nerve.com

During his lifetime (1907 - 1955), George Platt Lynes' most important work -- his photographs of male nudes -- went mostly unpublished. Lynes was better-known for his dance photography, commissioned by various ballet companies, and for his elegant fashion photos. His friendship with Gertrude Stein introduced him into the surrealist/avant-garde scene and provided opportunity to photograph luminaries such as Tennessee Williams, Jean Cocteau and Colette. At the apex of his career...

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