A couple walking along the Seine River in Paris

by Toni Frissell

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Artist Statement

A pair of lovers stroll along the Seine River in Paris, France, seemingly oblivious to the world—let alone the photographer perched above them. This edition is a perfect example of Toni Frissell’s naturalist perspective: an image that feels both candid and spontaneous, yet endlessly romantic. Are we looking at two carefully composed fashion models, told to huddle close for the shot, or a real-life Parisian couple casually nestled together as they traverse the cobblestone? We may never know, but because Frissell generously donated her photographs to the Library of Congress, we are able to contemplate that question, enjoying this image and thousands of others from her incredible legacy.

Why We Love It

We’re not sure if the subjects in A couple walking along the Seine River in Paris were actually models, posed under Frissell’s exacting eye, or if they were indeed a pair of real-life Parisian lovers huddled together on a foggy stroll. What we do know is that this photograph exemplifies much of the peculiar magic of Frissell’s approach to image-making—she was a master of semblant spontaneity, of imbuing her images with a sense of romanticized realism (even when they were precisely planned). She achieved this in part through her use of unconventional perspectives, like the exaggerated angle and high point of view from which A couple walking along the Seine River in Paris was shot ... Read more on the blog!

Details

Edition Details:
+ Museum quality: archival inks, 100% cotton rag paper unless noted
+ Handcrafted custom-framing is available

Our quoted dimensions are for the size of paper containing the images, not the printed image itself. We do not alter the aspect ratio, nor do we crop or resize the artists’ originals. All of our prints have a minimum border of .5 inches to allow for framing.

Medium:

Innova Fibaprint Warm Cotton Gloss

Edition Structure:
10"x8" | edition of 20
14"x11" | edition of 200
20"x16" | edition of 50
30"x24" | edition of 5

Toni Frissell

Antoinette Frissell Bacon, known as Toni Frissell, was born in New York City in 1907. She trained as an actress and worked in advertising before beginning her career in photography in the early 1930s. Mostly self-taught, Frissell found work at Vogue first as a caption writer, then as a fashion photographer. From 1941 through 1950, she worked for Harper’s Bazaar, but her work for the American Red Cross and later the Women’s Army Corps during World War II encouraged her toward photojournalism. It was her varied experiences and her unconventional background in photography that led her to bring models out... Read More
of the studio and into the outdoors. Frissell’s style felt fresh, spontaneous, and active in a fashion world used to large format cameras and subjects standing still. Her “action-fashion” photographs were the beginning of a new trend in postwar fashion imagery. Frissell eventually tired of fashion photography, and shifted her career into more lifestyle and sports work for the likes of LIFE, Look, Vogue, and Sports Illustrated until her retirement in 1967. In 1971, she donated her photographs to the Library of Congress, making them available to the public. Frissell died due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease in 1988, but her legacy lives on in her incredible work.
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