(Source: newyorker.com)

Ourarchive contains plenty of thoughtful, informative writing about Valentine’s Day: there have been several investigations into the origins of the holiday, for example, along with a look inside a valentines factory on Fifth Avenue. But there are lots of fun and wistful Valentine’s Day stories, too. Here’s a look at a few from the 1930s and 1940s: http://nyr.kr/XPGIL7

(Source: newyorker.com)

From canoodling couples to a self-adoring politician to letters received in moments of loneliness, New Yorker covers celebrate love in its many shapes and sizes.

Here’s a slideshow from 1925 to the present: http://nyr.kr/12lQt9n

(Source: newyorker.com)

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, we’ve curated a selection of intimate portraits from photographers who have a significant body of work devoted to their husband, wife, partner, or lover. The images below explore intangible emotions, from new, lustful love to lengthy, studied intimacy to a love transformed or lost. Click-through for a slideshow, and commentary from the photographers: http://nyr.kr/VhrbY0

(Source: newyorker.com)

Carolyn Kormann on the erotic poetry of John Donne, “a great visitor of ladies” and “a great writer of conceited verses”: http://nyr.kr/Z0oUxQ

“It’s not me on the park bench!” says Luci Gutiérrez, the thirty-five-year-old artist from Barcelona who drew “I Love,” the cover of this week’s issue. “But I wear these kinds of hats—very French—so, I guess there is something of me in her,” she says. “I think of them as typical young New Yorkers. I spent some months living there, and I love to draw the people.

Cover of the April 1, 2013 issue. Get the story behind this week’s cover, “I Love” by Luci Gutiérrez, plus a slideshow of loving couples in Art Deco New Yorker covers from the nineteen-twenties: http://nyr.kr/1027v7Y

At first sight, “Climates” is a simple fable. It tells of Philippe Marcenat, the heir to a provincial paper-mill business, who falls in love with the woman of his dreams, Odile Malet. He loses her, but is later loved in turn by Isabelle de Cheverny, a woman not of his dreams at all, although he tries (“Vertigo”-ishly) to make her so. We follow first Philippe and then Isabelle as they reflect on their love. There is a happy ending of sorts, though not for Philippe. Maurois has summarized his first vision of the story, in its bare-bones form, as:

Part 1. I love, and am not loved.

Part 2. I am loved, and do not love.

Put that way, it sounds like a perfectly balanced diptych. In fact, it is neither balanced nor anywhere near simple…

Sarah Bakewell on the two loves of André Maurois.

Photograph of Maurois with his wife Simone: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone/Getty.

Eleanor Callahan, Harry’s Muse

One of the greatest muses in photo history, Eleanor Callahan, died this week, at the age of ninety-five. Harry Callahan photographed her for more than fifty of the sixty-three years of their marriage. From intimate nudes to double exposures of her ghostly silhouette projected onto the woods, her image acted as an anchor in Callahan’s often abstracted vision. From the beginning, Harry spoke of his work as an extension of his life; in a grant proposal he wrote that he would use the money “to photograph as I felt and desired; to regulate a pleasant form of living; to get up in the morning—free, to feel the trees, the grass, the water, sky or buildings, people—everything that affects us; and to photograph that which I saw and have always felt.” We don’t know if he got the grant, but his innumerable photos of Eleanor are a testament to his success.

- On our Photo Booth blog, Suzanne Shaheen on Eleanor and Harry Callahan. For more of Harry’s photographs of Eleanor: http://nyr.kr/xfF3S4

Hold Me

On our Photo Booth blog - for Valentine’s Day - a selection of loving embraces, with thoughts from the curators and photographers: http://nyr.kr/xdVYDu

(Source: newyorker.com)

Wishing Mayor Bloomberg a Happy Birthday and a Happy Valentine’s Day. Cover by Barry Blitt, 2011.