Magnum Force

“Every face I see seems to hide—and sometimes fleetingly reveal—the mystery of another human being,” said the French portraitist Philippe Halsman, whose subjects have ranged from Audrey Hepburn to Albert Einstein. Halsman particularly loved to shoot artists and became close with many of them—his friendship with Salvador Dalí, for instance, led to some of Halsman’s most striking portraits and some of Dalí’s most celebrated Surrealist series. Halsman is also the photographer who shot the Vishnu-like image of Jean Cocteau with six arms; Georgia O’Keeffe amid the bones and stucco of New Mexico; and Giorgio de Chirico posed in front of one of his paintings, its nude echoed by his wife sitting next to him. Out this month, a new book contains more than 200 photographs of artists by Magnum photographers. Along with Halsman there’s Robert Capa, who captured Matisse painting toward the end of his life; Werner Bischof, who framed Frida Kahlo in front of her easel; and Herbert List, whose photo of Marino Marini immortalizes the artist astride a wooden horse, a prize given to him by the city of Venice during the 26th Biennale. —Julia Vitale