PHOTO:The Artist…the Muse…and the Obsessions I

The artist in the past when the model was necessary both in painting and photography had his own model-muse. Their relationship evolved from love and passion to marriage. Every photographer had his Muse and his Obsessions.

By Dimitris Lempesis

Man Ray as all of us know, had as Model-Muse and mistress, the also famous photographer Lee Miller. None of the famous photos of Helmut Newton, would had seen the light of the day, if in his side wasn’t the talented and restless Judith Newton. She was his source of inspiration, his model, collaborator and loyal companion, she actually was famous as Alice Springs and of course the great photographer could not have been untouched from the talent and the temperament of the French actress Catherine Deneuve. The photos of Nobuyoshi Araki, had as starting point and inspiration his wife Aoki Yoko, while his career took off after her death when his grief had been transformed into creativity, almost with the rhythm of an art machine. Robert Mapplethorpe was literally fascinated with an anorexic being that looks almost like a elf, Patti Smith, her aura is spread from her music to his photos. In the meantime, Cindy Sherman mocking the way which all the above and many more, in the past and the present have used and use, the female body and femininity for many different reasons, is using herself as a model in the most caustic and ironic way.