Photographer Philip Halsman

Surrealism is a trend in art. The word itself comes from the French surr? Alisme, which translates as superrealism or suprarealism. Surrealism took shape in the early 1920s in France. Differs in the use of allusions and paradoxical combinations of forms. The most famous artist working in the direction of surrealism was Salvador Dali. But not only in painting, there is surrealism in literature and photography. Philip Halsman is called the founder of surrealism in photography.

Photographer Philip Halsman (Latvian. Filips Halsmans) was born on May 2, 1906 in Riga (Latvia). His parents were Jewish - his father, Mordukh Khalsman, worked as a dentist, and his mother, Ita Grintukh, was a teacher. In 2011, a monument to Philip Halsman was erected on the side wall of the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (Skarnu Street) in Riga, sculptor Grigory Pototsko was the author of the monument.

Philip Halsman took his first photograph at the age of 15. He received his education at the University of Dresden, where he studied electrical engineering.

In 1928, tragic events took place in the fate of Philip Halsman. While traveling in the Austrian Alps, Philip's father died, and since there were no witnesses, the police accused Philip himself of parricide and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Then the case gained wide publicity, and many famous personalities stood up for it, including Thomas Mann, Albert Einstein. Philip was released two years later on the condition that he left Austria forever.

Thanks to these events, Philippe Halsman ended up in Paris, where he began to actively engage in photography. During this period he worked for magazines such as Vogue, Vu and Voil? And in his photographs appear: the artist Marc Chagall, the writer Andre Malraux, the poet and philosopher Paul Valéry, as well as the architect Le Corbusier.

In the fall of 1940, Philip Halsman, fleeing the Nazis, left France and moved to New York. It was here in 1941 that he met Salvador Dali (their friendship and cooperation would last for 30 years) and began to take an interest in surrealism.

In 1948, Philippe Halsman takes his famous surreal photograph "Dali Atomicus" - a portrait of Salvador Dali. The photo was created without editing - only a well-thought-out setting, several attempts (there were 28-28 buckets of water poured out, 28 cats thrown, Salvador Dali jumped 28 times) and, of course, the patience of the participants. This photo, in the same 1948, appears in Life magazine without retouching, and it shows the fishing line that holds the easel, paintings and stool suspended from the ceiling, as well as the assistant's hands holding the chair.

The joint work of Philippe Halsman and Salvador Dali was then compiled into two books - Dali Atomicus and Dali's Mustache.

A series of works by Philippe Halsman called "The Leap" is also very well known. For her, 200 photographs of famous people making a jump were taken. Philip Halsman wrote: "When a person jumps, his attention is mainly directed to the very act of jumping, the mask falls off and his true face appears."

In 1945, Philip Halsman becomes the first president of the American Society of Magazine Photographers, and works as a staff photographer for Life magazine. Such famous personalities from the world of science, politics and art as Henri Matisse, Anna Magnani, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Albert Einstein.

Surrealist photographer Philip Halsman left this world in 1979 at the age of 73.