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THE COLLECTION OF MARY JANE RUSSELL
Mary Jane Russell began her career as a fashion model in New York in 1948 and became one of the most sought-after mannequins of her age. She appeared on sixty fashion magazine covers, including Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, as well as modeling for the Paris haute couture houses. Throughout her fourteen-year career, she worked with the 'greats' of fashion photography - Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Richard Avedon, Lillian Bassman, William Klein, Cecil Beaton and Irving Penn. Penn, for example, chose her as his model for such celebrated fashion studies as Girl Drinking (1949) and Girl with Tobacco on Tongue (1951) as well as photographing her for several Vogue covers.
The following nine lots (157-166) are a small selection of superb fashion studies, originally in Mary Jane Russell's own private collection. The diverse group includes work from some of her earliest assignments on location with Toni Frissell (lot 164) and Lillian Bassman (166), as well as William Klein's characteristically inventive shots (lot 162) and work by her husband Edward Russell, an advertising executive and talented photographer in his own right (lot 161). Louise Dahl-Wolfe's elegant studies, sometimes affectionately inscribed (lots 159 and 165), speak of Ms. Russell's great personal charm and down-to-earth qualities.
At the time of her death in 2003, Penn wrote, 'Mary Jane Russell was a unique beauty of purity and simplicity. She brought to her posing as a model concentration and tenderness, rare in the fashion medium today. We are enriched by the images that remain with us.'
IRVING PENN (1917-2009)
Mary Jane Russell, 'Vogue', April 1958
Details
IRVING PENN (1917-2009)
Mary Jane Russell, 'Vogue', April 1958
gelatin silver print
signed in ink (on the reverse of the flush-mount)
image/flush-mount: approximately 13¼ x 11 1/8in. (33.5 x 28.3cm.)
Mary Jane Russell, 'Vogue', April 1958
gelatin silver print
signed in ink (on the reverse of the flush-mount)
image/flush-mount: approximately 13¼ x 11 1/8in. (33.5 x 28.3cm.)
Provenance
From the artist;
to Mary Jane Russell;
by bequest to the present owner
to Mary Jane Russell;
by bequest to the present owner
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