Melvin Sokolsky

Fashion photographer Melvin Sokolsky (1933-2022) was renowned for his iconic and innovative Bubble and Fly series shot in the 1960s for Harper’s Bazaar. The work he did in the 1960s elevated the fashion editorial to an art form.

Shot in 1963, the plexiglass bubble use in the Bubble series was designed for the surreal Harper’s Bazaar magazine spring shoot and hung from a cable on a crane in various locations around Paris. In his follow up Fly series shot in 1965, Sokolsky once again created an ethereal photographic spread with model Dorothea McGowan floating over diners, or Parisian roof tops. Each image captures Sokolsky’s unfettered imagination and demonstrates his ability to create intriguing and fanciful photographs. All of his work whether commercial or editorial has a sense of playful creativity, and an ability to capture his subject in new and intriguing ways.

Sokolsky’s work can be found in the permanent collection of the Guggenheim Museum, The Getty, The Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum, where he was included in Shots of Style, a retrospective of the world's major fashion photographers among others.