OUT100: Don Bachardy

Photography by JUCO | Retouching by Anna Glen at Wet Noodle

The Moment: February 14, 1953: Don Bachardy meets Chrisopher Isherwood in Santa Monica.

If there was a time when Don Bachardy labored under the shadow of his famous beau, writer Christopher Isherwood, that time is long past. Ceaselessly, and with a masterfully spare style, the artist has been building a body of work to rival his most prolific peers. This year, two new books paid homage to Bachardy's dual role as Isherwood's lover and reigning portraitist to the court of Hollywood. In The Animals: Love Letters Between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, we get a wonderfully intimate insight into a long and complex relationship. And in Hollywood, an epic monograph of Bachardy's work, we see his subtle take on celebrity, from a young and buttoned-up Joan Collins to a world-weary Marlene Dietrich. It's nothing short of a blockbuster.

Photographed at Bachardy's Los Angeles studio on September 5, 2014

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