Bizarre Bazaar : Eerie Images from Harper's Magazine

Harper's Bazaar Cover January 1942 : It's the middle of World War II, Clark Gable's wife just died, and all this girl can think about is Salvador Dali's new autobiography. Photograph by Louise Dahl-Wolfe. 

From "Crime and Fingerprints" article in Harper's Bazaar, 1910.

Lauren Bacall cover of Harper's Bazaar, March 1943.  From this cover, she was discovered by Howard Hawk's wife, who later trained her to lower her voice, which would become her trademark sultriness. Photographed by Louise Dahl-Wolfe.

Richard Avedon photograph of The Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, a monastery famous for mummifying the deceased when they ran out of room in the crypt. Up until the 1920s, it was considered a status symbol to be embalmed by the monks and displayed in a glass case in one's finest garments, with some clients requesting and paying for a periodic post-mortem change of clothes. Harper's Bazaar 1961. Creepy!

"Surreal Shopper" photograph by Herbert Matter, Harper's Bazaar 1939.

Learn more about the career and works of photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe at the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

Pete Rugulo | New York 1946

Jazz Composer Pete Rugulo in New York, 1946. Click here to experience Voodoo Rhapsody!

Moscot Week | New Yorker in '46

New Yorker Cover, September 21, 1946

Strap-On & Strap-Off | Bras of 1946

Strapless and Standard Bras of 1946

The Artist at Work | 1946

A young Austrian girl at work in the studio, 1946

East Meets West | Berlin, 1946

People sitting at the sunlight sidewalk cafe in Berlin, 1946.

During the war, large parts of Berlin were destroyed in the 1943–45 air raids and during the Battle of Berlin. After the end of the war, Berlin received large numbers of refugees from the Eastern provinces. The victorious powers divided the city into four sectors, analogous to the occupation zones into which Germany was divided. The sectors of the Western Allies formed West Berlin, while the Soviet sector formed East Berlin.

Greta Garbo's Eyes by Cecil Beaton

July 1946 Edition of VOGUE magazine featuring the first published photo shoot of Greta Garbo by Cecil Beaton.

One day in spring 1946, Greta Garbo asked Cecil Beaton if he could make her passport photograph. Beaton agreed and in the end the shot a full session. With her permission, he sent the pictures to Alexander Liberman, the art director at Vogue. Liberman “could hardly believe his eyes,” Beaton recalled. “Here was a precious windfall of a dozen different pictures of someone who for ten years had resolutely refused to be photographed.”

Sketch of Garbo's Eyes by Cecil Beaton from his 1937 Scrapbook

Garbo & Beaton in London, 1951

...as for her eyes, there are never been such before, in expression so quizzical, compassionate and languorous, so deepset and of such unforgettable blue; they have large, dark irises, and boast lashes so long that it is impossible to believe that they are real ... -Cecil Beaton