Giclee print edition of 100 on archival Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper

35.5 x 28 cm (14 x 11 inches)

I was absolutely fascinated by this account from Time Magazine of the sitting in which this photograph was taken, when Elizabeth Taylor was staggeringly still only 16 years old.

Philippe Halsman, the prolific 20th-century portrait photographer, was assigned by LIFE Magazine to photograph Taylor for a profile story.

In October 1948, Taylor arrived in a low-cut dress at Halsman’s New York City portrait studio, which still exists today and is now home to the Halsman Archive. “In my studio Elizabeth was quiet and shy. She struck me as an average teen-ager, except that she was incredibly beautiful,” Halsman reflected in his book Halsman: Sight and Insight.

“On a purely technical level, he pointed out that two sides of my face photographed differently,” Taylor would later recall. “One side looked younger; the other more mature. In posing for Halsman, I became instantly aware of my body.”

She also recalled Halsman shouting one particularly memorable instruction for her: “You have bosoms, so stick them out!”

In Taylor’s 1988 autobiography, Elizabeth Takes Off: On Weight Gain, Weight Loss, Self-Image, and Self-Esteem, she described the effect the portrait session had on her self-image: “[Halsman] was the first person to make me look at myself as a woman… After my session with Halsman, I was much more determined to control my screen image. I wanted to look older so I insisted on cutting my hair. In 1949 I went from portraying Amy in Little Women, another child-woman to playing a full-fledged romantic lead in The Conspirator. At barely seventeen, I grew up for all America to see.” -Tara Johnson / time.com

(Frame not included, but click here to see an affordable frame you can order online.)

10% of the sale of every print will be donated to The Murray Parish Trust.