by now this Lalanne torso has appeared somewhere in your sphere.
Yves Saint Laurent shocked, certainly a bit, when these sculptures serenely floated down the runway on his models in 1969.
Why?
It was the times-by then every Body part had been declared an erogenous zone-
Sex was IN-Rather it was OUT- everywhere.
Nothing could be bare without suggesting SEX
Oddly enough- Breasts have been with us-since well-pick a story, Creation-Eve, Evolution- Ape, and right down the line to the navel. Jan Massys Models for his paintings in the 1550' before-and -after of Flora, Judith, Venus and others would have been perfect for Lalanne to work from.
& who did sculptor Claude Lalanne look to for his Muse?
VERUSCHKA
Irving Penn's photographs of the Claude Lalanne jewelry sculpture appeared in the December 1969 Vogue. The waxed moulds were cast in copper and then dipped in vermeil.
Veruschka was an Artist even when she was modeling in the 1960's-and Muse-pushing the envelope with photographers in her fashion shoots. Richard Avedon called her the most beautiful woman in the world. She began photographing and chronicling her own persona during this period and completed a series of 45 photographs in 1992 that can be seen here.
In the 1960s, there suddenly appeared on the scene a fashion model and actress of extravagant and exotic beauty known to the world as "Veruschka." She remained an enigma, even when she starred in Antonioni’s classic film Blow-Up. As we now discover, Veruschka was, and is Vera Lehndorff, who, twenty years later, emerges as an artist of extraordinary power and originality. The manikin she created of herself is an abstraction inspired by Egyptian art (from Ralph Pucci International)
Mannequin
by Vera Lehndorff
from Ralph Pucci here
see VERUSCHKA'S enigmatic self portraits HERE
