More iconic Lillian Bassman photos.

(via Lillian Bassman - Slide Show - NYTimes.com)

A Lillian Bassman photo.

(via Photos: Lillian Bassman’s Take on Fashion - NYTimes.com)

I somehow missed that Lillian Bassman passed away on Monday, 2/13.  She took some of my favorite high fashion/art photos.

Another of Man Ray’s portraits, this one of Denise Tual.

“Man Ray’s Avant-Garde Portraits of Famous Friends” from Flavorwire

One of my favorite artist/muses, Lee Miller.  I don’t think I’ve seen this portrait before.

My for-fun, bedtime reading, at the moment.  (You can’t understand what a luxury this is in the middle of a lit PhD course of study.) It’s (what I believe they would have then called) a “riot”—a totally underrated piece of humor/satire.  My for-school reading this weekend was also Dorothy Parker, so I’m feeling well-edified in my misanthropy. 

I found this record at one of my favorite thrifts stores in Elkins, WV for $1.  It was sitting among a cache of other France-related LPs (a few of which I also nabbed…you never know when you might need French accordion music for an “I Love Paris in the Springtime” theme party, you know?).  And now I’m thinking and wondering about the person who owned them.  I’m imaging a woman who lived in West Virginia her whole life, an ardent Francophile who never had the money to get there herself (let alone leave the country.  To folks in this region, “the city” is either Charleston or Morgantown, or, if you’re lucky, Pittsburgh).  What did “France” look like in her head, I wonder, and how did she build that image?  Along with these albums, what were her sources?

A book mark would be better! (LOC) by The Library of Congress on Flickr.

From the Library of Congress.