r.i.p. - gae aulenti

the main hall of the musée d’orsay, which was converted from a train station

sgarsul rocking chair 1962

tour table

amused futuristic design, la ruspa

olivetti showroom, new york, fifth avenue, 1954

gae aulenti with pipistrello table lamp, 1966

world renowned italian architect gae aulenti has died at her home in milan at the age of 84. aulenti was one of the few italian women to rise to prominence in architecture & design in the postwar years. she transformed the parisian beaux arts gare d'orsay railway station (a landmark originally designed by victor laloux) into the musee d'orsay in the 1980s & refurbished the contemporary art gallery at the pompidou centre in paris. she has designed villas for the rich, showrooms for fiat, olivetti shops & showrooms, pens & watches for louis vuitton & furniture that includes a coffee table on wheels that is in the collection of the museum of modern art in new york.  she was named chevalier of the légion d'honneur by the french government for her work.

r.i.p. - anna piaggi

fashion icon anna piaggi died in her home in milan at the age of 81. bill cunningham described her as a "fine poet in clothes." indeed, fashion has lost one of it's finest.

r.i.p. - masahisa fukase

all photographs by mashisa fukase

masahisa fukase died on june 9, 2012, he was 78 years old. i'm so sad to hear of his death & sad that i accidentally came across this information.  in my opinion, he was one of the most amazing photographers.  in 2010, a panel of 5 experts selected karasu (ravens) as the best photobook published between 1986 & 2009. it is the one book i covet to own the most.
his pursuit of ravens began when his wife of 13 years, yoko, left him. while on a train returning to his hometown of hokkaido he got off the train & saw the ravens & became obsessed with them, with their darkness & loneliness. (before then yoko was the main subject of his photos) according to yoko, fukase was an intense & obsessive character despite the joyousness of the images he made of her early in his career. she described their life together as moments of "suffocating dullness interspersed by violent & near suicidal flashes of excitement." after they split up, he suffered from bouts of depression & heavy drinking. "i work and photograph while hoping to stop everything," he once said. "in that sense, my work may be some kind of revenge drama about living now."
in 1992, five years after karasu was published,  fukase  fell down a flight of stairs in a bar & suffered traumatic brain injury. he remained in a coma until his death. his former wife, now remarried, visited him twice a month is hospital. "with a camera in front of his eye, he could see; not without," she told an interviewer. "he remains part of my identity; that's why i still visit him."

r.i.p. levon helm

a good ole' country boy to the end.

r.i.p. lillian bassman

barbara mullen in dior hat, ritz,  harper's bazaar, 1949

black and white, mary jane russell, le pavillon, new york, harper's bazaar, april 1950

barbara mullens, harper's bazaar, 1958

it's a cinch, carmen, harper's bazaar, september 1951

mary jane russell, new york, 1950

anne st. marie, chanel advertisement, new york, 1959

blowing a kiss, barbara mullen, harper's bazaar, 1958

wonders of water, new york, 1959

dressed leg, dorian leigh, harper's bazaar, 1948

legendary photographer lillian bassman died yesterday at the age of 94 from natural causes. she is considered one of the greatest female fashion photographers & credited with promoting the careers of richard avedon, robert frank & louis faurer during her tenure at harper's bazaar from the late 1940s to the mid 1960s.

in the 1970s she lost interest in fashion & famously tossed out 40 years worth of negatives & prints; over 20 years later, she stumbled upon a forgotten trash bag in the coal room of her upper east side home that contained hundreds of her fashion images, which led to a renewed popular interest in her work.

bassman continued working right up until the end of her life, embracing digital technology & photoshop. she told wwd, "everybody's fascinated with the idea of someone who is productive at my age. but i don't know where or who i would be if i weren't working. plus, i'm convinced i'm really 25."

r.i.p. eiko ishioka

bram stoker's dracula

the fall

the cell

grace jones, hurricane tour

bjork, cocoon

the amazingly talented designer eiko ishioka died of pancreatic cancer on saturday in tokyo. she was 73. she earned both an oscar & a grammy for her work.

she trained as a graphic designer & was considered the foremost art director in the world. she won the academy award for costume design in 1992 for bram stoker's dracula, directed by francis ford coppola.  if you haven't seen her work in this film it's a must - the costumes are beyond brilliant.

ms. ishioka was closely associated with director tarsem singh, for whom she designed costumes for four films. for the cell, starring jennifer lopez, she designed a headpiece that resembled a cross between a rigid neck brace & a forbidding bird cage. "jennifer asked me if i could make it more comfortable," ms. ishioka told the ottawa citizen in 2000, "but i said, 'no, you're supposed to be tortured'." she also worked on the fall, immortals & mirror, mirror with singh.

on the broadway stage, ms. isioka designed sets & costumes for david henry hwang's 1988 drama m. butterfly, for which she earned 2 tony nominations & more recently, costumes for the musical spider-man: turn off the dark.

she won a grammy in 1986 for her design of mile davis's album "tutu". a must see is her work for japanese boutique stores, parco.  they included nude or nearly nude models - a rarity in japan at the time. many of the ads rarely depicted anything sold at parco. she did a GENIUS commercial for them starring faye dunaway peeling & eating a hard-boiled egg.

her other work included designing uniforms & outerwear for the swiss, canadian, japanese & spanish teams a the 2002 winter olympics in salt lake city. she was also the director of costume design at the opening ceremony of the 2008 summer olympics in bejing. she designed costumes for cirque du soleil's "varekai" & was the visual artistic director of the illusionist david copperfield's 1996 broadway show.

she also designed costumes for grace jone's hurricane tour - i saw this show & the costumes were just beyond.  she also directed bjork's music video for cocoon.

a sad loss. 

r.i.p. eve arnold

self-portrait in a distorted mirror, 42nd street, new york, 1950

marilyn monroe in the nevada desert during the filming of the misfits, 1961

anthony quinn & anna karina, 1967

horse training for the militia, inner mongolia, china, 1979

nuns

women in burqas

bar girl in a brothel in the red light district, havana, cuba, 1954

marilyn monroe

eve arnold, one of the first woman photojournalists to join the prestigious magnum photography agency in the 1950s has died at the age of 99 wednesday in london. the cause was not specified.

r.i.p. helen frankenthaler

mountains and sea, 1952

helen frankenthaler contemplates an abstract expressionist painting in her studio, 1957

mauve district, 1966

indian summer, 1967

message from degas, 1974

devils mist, 1967

contentment island, 2002

nepenthe, 1972

abstract painter helen frankenthaler has died today at the age of 83 after a long illness. 

she poured turpentine-thinned paint in watery washes onto raw canvas so that it soaked into the fabric weave, developing a style known as color field. read more about her here.