X-Ray

Famed makeup artist and photographer François Nars has assembled a book of his portraits in X-Ray. The one-page preface, written in French by fashion maven Andre Leon Talley, makes the point that this is not a text-heavy book. The photos are large-format, and each portrait occupies an entire page. Readers will find many familiar as well as unfamiliar faces here, all set in vivid Technicolor against a stark white background. Among the most recognizable are the photos of supermodel Shalom Harlow as a naughty Snow White. Nars's subjects are varied, but they are all legends in their own right, contributors to a stylistic vision, both of his world and their own. A few favorites of this reviewer are Ivanka Trump as a perched yellow canary, Kate Moss as Dorothy, Alexander McQueen wearing British flag contact lenses, and Amber Valletta as a 1960s airline stewardess. Then there are the more straightforward portraits--involving less costuming--of Chloe Sevigny, Sharon Gault, Grace Jones, Isabella Rossellini, Francesco Clemente, Tim Burton, Susan Sarandon, and a slew of models, designers, artists, and musicians young and old. The portraits are simple, yet Nars's sense of color and the up-front-and-center feeling of the images--so many interesting faces, some staring at readers unmasked, others transformed into utter fantasy--are phenomenally powerful. --Amra Brooks