Ruth Ansel posing with three Maasai warriors on a shoot for House and Garden at Peter Beard's Hog Ranch in Kenya. Photo: Alexandre Baillache, 1990.
"On a short list of the strong, incomparable art directors with whom I have worked, Ruth was and remains the most mysterious. The brilliance of her mind goes straight through her eyes to her fingertips, leapfroging over language and creating always the previously inexpressible. Simply put, she is all visual…a genius visual."
—Richard Avedon
Over the course of a vibrant and long-standing career, Ruth Ansel has come to define visual culture. Starting at Harper's Bazaar in 1962, she collaborated with industry greats such as Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander and Bill Brandt, amongst others, to create leading content and design. Following her departure in 1971, she has continued to work with illustrious publications such as The New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair, where she reshaped the magazine's visual identity.
Ansel's collection, on offer during our New York Photographs Day Sale on 6 October, speaks to her dedication to working with groundbreaking photographers, the importance of collaborative vision, and photography's distinct voice projected through the pages of a magazine. From the published works of Diane Arbus' Young Heiresses (lots 114-115), to Annie Leibovitz's portrait of Anjelica Huston (lot 142), and Bruce Weber's charming picture of Sam Shepard and Jessica Lange (lot 140), to the unpublished rarity of Lee Friedlander's hidden American cars (lots 116-117) and Arbus' pictures of babies (lots 122-125), these works so clearly resonate with each photographer's unique voice. Under astute art direction by Ansel, the commercial and artistic lives of these photographers have become intricately intertwined, as they did with Diane Arbus' Fashion Independents.
Harper's Bazaar, July 1965
Harper's Bazaar's recurring editorial, broadly titled The Fashion Independent, often featured the everyday sophisticated style of women who seamlessly translate high fashion into effortless chic everyday wear. With its more broad possibilities for compelling portraiture, Diane Arbus regularly pitched ideas for Fashion Independents to Ruth Ansel, including The Young Heiresses (lots 114-115) and Mrs. T Charlton Henry (lot 120), which coupled portraits with descriptions of the women’s lives and style.
Diane Arbus Maria Christina Drew, N.Y.C., 1964. Below, the photograph as seen in Harper's Bazaar, April 1964.
Maria Christina Drew (lot 114), an 'intense, brunette' with 'a tornado of talents', majors in medieval history at Radcliffe College and aspires to write a best seller. 'Fashion loves: suede suits, furry hats, Pucci slacks—and the sort of ruffly, froufrou black theatre ensemble you see her in here.' Reed Buchanan (lot 115), lounges in interior decorator Arthur Weinstein's apartment, engulfed in luscious patterns, with 'golden hair that might have been spun in a fairy tale but a contemporary life.'
Diane Arbus Reed Buchanan, N.Y.C., 1964. Below, the photograph as seen in Harper's Bazaar, April 1964.
With her own dedicated section in July 1965's The Fashion Independent, Mrs. T Charlton Henry's (lot 120) steely confidence ignites her portraits of this "fragile, feminine" woman who "moves through life like a Trojan." Compelling, intense and glamorous, Arbus' Fashion Independents convey her genius in the glossiest of pages.