Bud Powell 1956 - 1958

Lisette Model made this photograph, Bud Powell, sometime in the mid-twentieth century. The pianist is slumped over his instrument, a dark suit blending into a dark ground. I can imagine Model circling Powell, looking, watching, feeling for the right moment. I wonder what she was thinking as she snapped the picture; maybe it was something about vulnerability, exhaustion, or maybe simply the quiet beauty of a musician at rest. A performer in private, unguarded. There’s a whole history of photography bound up in this image and the artist's process: think of the work of photographers like August Sander and Weegee, all those black and white images of people living in the modern world. This feels like part of that ongoing investigation into how we live and who we are. Artists are always looking, always borrowing, always answering one another across time.