Muliebrity, more honest than modest

The perversions of inequality are absent; what appears instead is the glamour of a protracted cultural moment in which women were free from any expectation of sexual pursuit. The power of Ms. Bassman's photographs is the power of a woman who is never moved to make a call.

The work of Lillian Bassman, strictly speaking, falls beyond the scope of Danzig U.S.A.. As this article and this photo gallery attest, however, there is a renaissance of interest in Bassman's astonishingly honest depictions of feminine beauty.