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GEORGE PLATT LYNES PHOTOGRAPHS 1931-1955 |
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A NOTE ON THE PHOTOGRAPHS In the studio George Lynes worked principally with an 8 x 10 format view camera, switching occasionally to 4 x 5 for outdoor work. Negatives were printed on AZO paper, numbers 1, 2 and 3, for contact work and a KODABROM paper, numbers 1, 2 and 3, for projection work. Prints dated 1951 in this volume are from paper negatives, an inexpensive process Lynes experimented with throughout the 1950s. In the final months of his illness Lynes resolved to destroy major portions of his print and negative archives. Only a few dozen of his fashion photographs survived this decision and though Lynes' portrait negative files are extensive, prints are rare and as with all of his oeuvre, usually one of a kind. Lynes' favorite fashion models, Ruth Ford and Laurie Douglas prominent among them, often became the photographer's close friends. He saved his images of these models, considering them portraits, a category subscribed to in this volume. 'Nudes' of prominent individuals and 'explicit' sexual situations were also discarded. Often, Lynes' nudes found in private collections are not represented by either prints or negatives in his own archives, indicating substantial numbers of these works were also destroyed. Lynes' ballet photographs are collected in the New York Public Library Dance Archives at Lincoln Center. In the twenty-five years since his death, the surviving photographs were stored unordered in boxes, scrapbooks and a file cabinet. There are few records concerning a photograph's date or a sitter's identification. Lynes' close friend Glenway Wescott did his best to correct this situation and it is by his memory that many of this volume's images are dated.
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