Bettie Page photographed by Bill Hamilton (Courtesy of Michael Fornitz collection)

“Bettie” by Beatrice Brandini

The Gallery Ono Art Contemporary in Bologna celebrates Bettie Page with the “Bettie Page: the Original Pin Up” (from tomorrow until September 29), enchants us with 55 shots of one of the most sensual, provocative, independent, free and beautiful women of all times.

Bettie Page

Bettie Page photographed by Arnold Kovacs (Courtesy of Michael Fornitz collection)

The images, from the collection of Michael Fornitz ( Page gave him before she died), show the complexities and perhaps unpublished aspects of this “performer”, a woman naturally sensual and completely at ease before of the camera (in pose or spontaneously retracted), but also a symbol of women’s emancipation, when bondage, fetish and nudity were real taboo not only in America puritanical on the fifties ….

Bettie Page photographed by Irving & Paula Klaw, 1953 (Courtesy of Michael Fornitz collection)

Bettie Page photographed by Bunny Yeager, 1954 (Courtesy of Michael Fornitz collection)

Bettie Page

Many have drawn by her beauty that would better define “aesthetic personality”, among them Helmut Newton, Madonna, Beyoncé, Dita Von Teese … as well as many fashion editorials have seen protagonists models with her unmistakable bangs. To demonstrate that she was not a simple woman from the cover.

I always considered her as an icon thoroughly contemporary, always and especially if you contextualizes her life in the years in which she lived.

Bettie Page

 

Bettie Page

Bettie Page was photographed by Bunny Yeager,  1954 (Courtesy of Michael Fornitz collection)

Bettie Page photographed by Bunny Yeager, 1954 (Courtesy of Michael Fornitz collection)

Bettie Page was explosive, modern, an inspiration to all women, especially for those who can not live their sensuality in a spontaneous and natural way.

Madonna and Katy Perry photographed by Steven Klein for V Magazine, 2014

Madonna and Katy Perry photographed by Steven Klein for V Magazine, 2014

   

Monica Bellucci photographed by Alix Malka for Vogue Espana, 2008

Katy Perry photographed by Yu Tsaisu for Esquire, 2010

Promising student, began her career as a secretary dreaming of acting and become a movie star. However, her life changed thanks (for us it was fortunate because we have admired and continue to do so, but I’m not sure it was the same for her) meeting with the photographer Jerry Tibbs on a beach in Coney Island 1950. From here became the most popular American model of those years.

   

Bettie on lingerie by Beatrice Brandini

   

Bettie on lingerie by Beatrice Brandini

Important shoot was “Bettie jungle” by Bunny Yeager in a zoo safari with exotic animals and the Playboy page as a Playmate of the Month, in 1955.

I think she was primarily a women’s emancipated and free.., so perhaps the price she had to pay was high. Because at that time (it’s been more than sixty years, but certain difficulties are the same also today) the role of women was really secondary, let alone when the outward appearance and its role (fictitious) was, like that carried out by  Page,  to a “doll “.

Interesting as the Art Gallery Ono, exhibition curator, manages to combine characters icons of the twentieth century (very interesting was the exhibition dedicated to Kate Moss), with class and a key that allows us to see different and new perspectives.

Good life to all!

Beatrice