<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"A fixture at New York society events and on the city streets in his cobalt-blue French workman's jacket, Bill Cunningham is one of Manhattan's most beloved characters. Over the years, The New York Times photographer and subject of Richard Press's delightful 2010 documentary, Bill Cunningham New York, has become an object of fascination on a par with the A-listers he shoots. At fashion designer Dennis Basso's last show, for example, actress Debra Messing ran over to shoot a picture of Cunningham.\n\nA new exhibition at the New-York Historical Society, \"Bill Cunningham: Fa\u00E7ades,\" revisits an eight-year project that Cunningham and his model muse, Editta Sherman, began in 1968. Sherman, Cunningham's neighbor at the Carnegie Hall Studio Towers, where she was known as \"The Duchess,\" dressed in period costumes that matched the date of each historic building they used as a backdrop. Together, they amassed some 500 outfits, recording more than 1,800 locations.\n\nPinterestFacebook*Paris Theater,* Bill Cunningham.\n\n\"I've always been crazed about fashion, a nutcase. And I was mad about architecture,\" Cunningham said in his remarks on the opening night of the exhibition, which happened to be his 85th birthday. \"We would collect all these wonderful dresses in thrift shops and at street fairs. There is a picture of two 1860 taffeta dresses, pre\u2013Civil War\u2014we paid $20 apiece. No one wanted this stuff. A Courr\u00E8ges I think was $2. The kids were into mixing up hippie stuff, and I was just crazed for all the high fashion.\"\n\nPinterestFacebook*Guggenheim Museum.*\n\nIn each image Sherman, a successful portrait photographer in her own right, breathes personality into eras long forgotten. \"You're seeing Editta Sherman's spirit,\" Cunningham continued. \"We were like crazy kids. We had the most fun.\" While the pair were evicted from Carnegie Hall in 2010 when the studios were converted into rehearsal spaces, and Sherman died last year at the age of 101, the exhibition captures not only the eras of art and fashion pictured, but also the period in which the images were created. \"People are hungry for his work,\" said Valerie Paley, the curator of the exhibition. \"And not just because he's Bill Cunningham, but because the work is excellent. Many people feel that he defines society today with the pictures he takes, but in fact, his work is far more complex.\"\n\nThrough June 15, New-York Historical Society; nyhistory.org\n\nPinterestFacebook*Gothic bridge in Central Park.*"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/bill-cunningham-facades-new-york-historical-society>