George Platt LynesOrpheus #10 - Balanchine Ballet with Francisco Moncion and Nicholas Magallanes1950
1950
About the Item
- Creator:
- Creation Year:1950
- Dimensions:Height: 7.63 in (19.39 cm)Width: 9.25 in (23.5 cm)Depth: 0.07 in (1.78 mm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Excellent condition. Original 1950 artist print. Never displayed or exposed to light or sunlight.
- Gallery Location:Glenford, NY
- Reference Number:
George Platt Lynes
George Platt Lynes was lauded as one the world’s top commercial photographers in the first half of the 20th century, known for his portraits of important cultural figures, surreal fashion shoots and innovative use of lighting and evocative sets. However, in an era when homosexuality was considered a crime, Lynes had to keep secret his best work: erotic nude photographs of men.
Born in 1907 in New Jersey, Lynes attended the Berkshire School in Sheffield, Massachusetts, graduating in 1925. In his youth, Lynes had dreamed of becoming a writer. He published a literary journal and opened a bookstore, both of which were unsuccessful. When he inherited a trove of photographic equipment from a friend, Lynes turned his focus toward a career in photography.
Self-taught, Lynes proved to be a gifted talent behind the camera. His preternatural understanding of the interplay between light, shadow and form garnered critical acclaim. In 1932, Lynes had his first solo exhibition, at Leggett Gallery, followed by a two-artist show with photographer Walker Evans at Julien Levy Gallery. By 1933, Lynes became a central figure in New York photography, whose stylized technique was sought by magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Town & Country and Vogue.
In 1935, the American Ballet Company (now the New York City Ballet) commissioned Lynes to photograph their principal dancers and performances, leading to Lynes’s appointment as the company’s primary photographer for the next 20 years.
While Lynes enjoyed immense success as a fashion and commercial photographer from the 1930s to the 1950s, he was secretly photographing male nudes — a subject considered highly taboo at the time. Fearing criminal reprisal, Lynes hid the photos and his sexual orientation from the public, sharing his work with a few select friends. Among them was Dr. Alfred Kinsey, founder of the Kinsey Institute, who, in the late 1940s, was researching human sexuality. Enthralled by Lynes’s figurative, black and white photos of the male form, Kinsey purchased more than 600 prints and several hundred negatives at the risk of prosecution.
After he was diagnosed with lung cancer, in 1955, Lynes destroyed many of his negatives and prints. However, he entrusted a sizeable volume of his male nudes to the Kinsey Institute, which today holds the largest collection of Lynes’s works, second only to the Lynes estate. In 2019, an exhibition of images culled from the Kinsey collection, “Sensual/Sexual/Social: The Photography of George Platt Lynes,” was held at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.
Long after his death, Lynes’s legacy has shaped the evolution of sexual and gender norms. His works are highly sought by galleries and collectors of modern and contemporary photography.
On 1stDibs, discover a range of George Platt Lynes photography.
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- Orpheus #1 - Balanchine Ballet with Francisco Moncion and Nicholas MagallanesBy George Platt LynesLocated in Glenford, NYGeorge Platt Lynes 1950 Photograph #1 of Balanchine Ballet ‘Orpheus’. George Platt Lynes rare original vintage 1950 silver gelatin photograph of nude dancers Francisco Moncion and Nicholas Magallanes in George Balanchine's iconic mid-20th Century ballet Orpheus. Stamped on verso in dark blue ink at upper center, "GEORGE PLATT LYNES/145 EAST 52 STREET NEW YORK”. Photo shoot took place in NYC on March 21, 1950. Costumes and Set by ISAMU NAGUCHI. Photo is 7 5/8 x 9 1/4 inches, soft satin finish in excellent condition. This photograph is one from a collection of 14 different poses in this series of nude photographs of Moncion and Magallanes in Orpheus by Platt Lynes. Complete collection is available on request. Photographs from this celebrated series are in the 20th Century collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), Museum of Modern Art (MOMA, NYC), and the Columbus Museum. George Platt Lynes (1907–1955), was a gregarious American portrait, dance, fashion, and male nude photographer whose career spanned the late 1920s through the early 1950s. From age eighteen, Lynes entered the cosmopolitan world of the American expatriate community in Paris when he became acquainted with the salon of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. He began photographing authors like Stein, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Colette and soon established himself as one of the premier fashion photographers in the Condé Nast stable, documenting the ballet companies of George Balanchine/Lincoln Kirstein, and pursuing a private obsession with seductive images of young male nudes rarely published in his lifetime. Orpheus represents a major 20th Century artistic collaboration between composer Igor Stravinsky, choreographer George Ballanchine, and artist/designer Isamu Naguchi. Orpheus is a thirty-minute neoclassical ballet composed by Igor Stravinsky in collaboration with choreographer George Balanchine in Hollywood, California in 1947. The work was commissioned by Ballet Society, later renamed New York City Ballet, which Balanchine founded with Lincoln Kirstein. Sets and costumes were created by Isamu Noguchi. Noguchi’s lyre harp from the production became the symbol of the New York City Ballet. Francisco Moncion (July 6, 1918 – April 1, 1995) was a charter member of the New York City Ballet. Over the course of his forty year career, choreographers George Balanchine, and Jerome Robbins in the New York City Ballet created 22 major roles for Moncion including the Dark Angel...Category
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MaterialsSilver Gelatin
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MaterialsSilver Gelatin
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MaterialsSilver Gelatin
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MaterialsSilver Gelatin
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