Philippe Halsman, the revealing leap
« Latvian-born American photographer (1906-1979), 101 Life covers, inventor of jumpology. »
Born in Riga, Philippe Halsman settled in Paris in 1931 where he became a fashion photographer for Vogue France. Fleeing the Nazis in 1940, saved by a visa secured through Albert Einstein's personal intervention, he reached New York. He would sign 101 Life covers between 1942 and 1972.
His collaboration with Salvador Dalí ran for over thirty years. Dalí Atomicus (1948) — the painter, three cats, a bucket of water, two easels, all suspended in midair — required 28 takes and six hours in the studio. Halsman then theorised jumpology: photographing celebrities in mid-jump reveals their true nature.
Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Richard Nixon, the Duke of Windsor: all jumped for Halsman. With a Rolleiflex 6x6, he fixed those fractions of a second when social control collapses. He died in 1979 in New York. His daughter Irene now manages his archive, one of the richest in American portraiture.