#11. A Look at Illustrator Merle Bassett's Sketch of Pauline Trigère

Merle Bassett's illustration of Pauline Trigere ad.

Photo from Todaysinspiration.blogpost.com

One of my very first interviews for the Pauline Trigère biography was tracking down illustrator Merle Bassett. Among the Trigère articles and materials I have collected over the years, there was this particular sketch that always fascinated me. Completely unaware of Merle Bassett’s accomplished body of works; I googled the tiny credit that bore his name at the bottom of the sketch and tracked down his phone number. I was lucky enough to interview him, (at the time he was at ninety years of age,) and learned about one of his well-known work for the House of Lanvin: a perfume ad for the fragrance called “My Sin” which featured a black cat with 6 little kittens. At the young age of 21, the talented Merle had already attracted the attention of the store Neiman Marcus and was hired to work for the store’s advertising campaigns and quickly became one of the major illustrators in the 1950’s. Three years later he moved to New York, and through advertising queen Jane Trahey, he was given an assignment to illustrate some Trigère ads. The solo sketch shows Ms.Trigère sitting next to a table, a gentleman standing in front of her and they are having a conversation. The gentleman is identified as Monsieur Henri Soule; major-domo of the famous “Le Pavilion” restaurant. This simple pencil lines captured Ms.Trigère’s essence beautifully as she was wearing a short Trigère caplet with her trademark bangles. The by-line indicate it was a “marvelous luncheon suit of crisped woolen”. I was fascinated and completed engulfed by my conversation with Merle and told him how much I loved the sketch. He then told me there were a total of four sketches from that series of ads! They included actress Elaine Stritch, Broadway actor Cyril Richard and interior designer William Pahlmann (of Four Seasons Hotel) to round out the campaign ads. He described what it was like when he first met Ms.Trigère at Elaine Stritch’s apartment when he was given the assignment. He recounted stories of meeting the other four well-known personalities of the New York society in order to complete the sketches for the ads.

Another two years went by when I was finally able to find the remaining three sketches at the Museum of City of New York archive. It was also the beginning of my exciting journey of documenting Ms.Trigère’s life, in addition to her professional body of work. The complete series of four sketches are included in my book.

September 2018