Photographer Lillian Bassman was born on June 15, 1917, in New York, USA. She passed away on February 13, 2012.
In 1935, she participated in the WPA's Federal Art Project as an assistant painter. In 1941, she became an assistant to Alexei Brodovitch, art director of Harper's Bazaar magazine, and in 1945, she was appointed art director of Junior Bazaar magazine. From this time, she began to teach herself photography.
In 1948, her first photo assignment for Bazaar led to her career as a photographer, and she went on to become one of the magazine's greatest contributors as a photographer during its period of great success. In 1951, she opened the Bassman-Himmel Studio in New York with her husband, photographer Paul Himmel. For the next 20 years, both she and her husband were active fashion photographers.

In the 1970s, she moved away from fashion photography to pursue more personal works. From the late 1980s, she also began teaching at a design school. From the late 1980s to the 1990s, her achievements began to gain international recognition, and her past work was reevaluated. In response, she returned to the forefront as a fashion photographer in 1996. In 2004, she also received the Lucie Award, an international photography award, in recognition of her outstanding achievements in the field of fashion photography.

This spring, a retrospective exhibition was held at the Chanel Nexus Hall and the Kyotography International Photography Festival.