3/90. Abbe, Kathryn. Manhattan, 1948.There was an extraordinary gracefulness about the way Kathryn a
3/90. Abbe, Kathryn. Manhattan, 1948.There was an extraordinary gracefulness about the way Kathryn and Frances McLaughlin’s lives and careers reflected and refracted each other across the decades. Born in Brooklyn in 1919, the twin sisters studied art and design at the Pratt Institute (where they both became fascinated by the school’s photo lab in their second year), and then both made it to the finals of Vogue’s annual Prix de Paris contest in 1941. But whilst Frances became the first woman photographer to be given a Vogue contract, Kathryn stayed freelance — assisting Toni Frissell for two years before branching out on her own, marrying James Abbe Jr, and shooting from their shared studio at 572 Madison Avenue. She shot for a broad roster of publications, ranging from new arrivals like Charm and Mademoiselle to stalwarts like Good Housekeeping — where, in the summer of 1948, shortly before she had her first child, she shot a 21-year-old Mullen. Heading beauty editor Ruth Murrin’s regular advice section, the image presided over a page that sternly admonished its readers to remember that ‘fifty percent of good looks is plain good grooming.’Frances McLaughlin famously defined her photography the art of capturing the ‘moment passing.’ But where McLaughlin was fascinated by motion and gesture, Kathryn Abbe focused on the stillness and serenity of the captured moment itself. That may, in part, have come from the nature of fashion photography in those first decades, when cumbersome cameras and long exposure times meant that models had to perfect the art of holding each position for long, agonising seconds. In the photograph, you can almost see Mullen waiting for the signal to drop the pose; torso tense and stretched, shoulders bared in a long Filcol dress that folds softly to the floor, her breath straining to release.#BarbaraMullen #TheReplacementGirl #Unbound #KathrynAbbe #GoodHousekeeping #1949 -- source link