Yurek Shabelevsky, October 1939

George Platt Lynes

1939 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

An accomplished fashion and portrait photographer, Lynes began photographing dancers in 1935 for Lincoln Kirstein’s and George Balanchine’s American Ballet Company (now New York City Ballet). His arresting portrait of Polish dancer Yurek Shabelevsky, who toured the United States in 1939, reveals Lynes’s fine sense for posing and lighting the human figure and echoes of his interest in Surrealism—first forged as a student in Paris five years earlier. Here, the dancer’s inky silhouette contrasts with the unveiled face and torso. Lynes would continue to photograph the male body, both nude and clothed, throughout his career.

Artist

George Platt Lynes

Date

1939

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

David Hunter McAlpin Fund, 1941