Peter Fetterman Gallery

# Curated Views
Part III: From the studio to the street
INTRODUCTION #PART I #PART II #PART III #PART IV #PART V

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A whole generation of fashion photographers, many arriving or escaping from Europe, were drawn in to the studios of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar by the visionary art directors Alexander Liberman and Alexey Brodovich. They were encouraged to break the rules and push the boundaries of the medium, each with a unique vision and sensibility.

The revolution began in the studio as surrealism intertwined with fashion, and continued through experimental techniques in the darkroom and technological advances such as lighter, smaller cameras and the accessibility of the telephoto lens. As photographers increasingly found inspiration in the streets, they could also now fully embrace the shadow and light of the city by night.
Horst P. Horst
(German, 1906-1999)

‘Fashion is an expression of the times. Elegance is something else again.’

Horst, 1984

'Horst P. Horst created images that transcend fashion and time. He was a master of light, composition and atmospheric illusion, who conjured a world of sensual sophistication. In an extraordinary sixty-year career, his photographs graced the pages of Vogue and House and Garden under the one-word photographic byline ‘Horst’. He ranks alongside Irving Penn and Richard Avedon as one of the pre-eminent fashion and portrait photographers of the 20th century.'

Victoria and Albert Museum, London (from the exhibition 'Horst: Photographer of Style' 2014-2015)
The Power of Photography #198
Horst P. Horst. Bombay Bathing Fashion, Oyster Bay, N.Y., 1950
"I like taking photographs because I like life. And I love photographing people best of all because most of all I love humanity."

~ Horst P. Horst
Horst was one of the greatest fashion photographers of all time. He originally studied architecture in Hamburg and served as an apprentice to Le Corbusier in Paris but then switched to photography with the help of his friend and mentor George Hoyningen-Huene, a fashion photographer working for Vogue. Horst soon followed in his peer's footsteps and in 1935 succeeded Huene as head photographer at French Vogue. This is my favorite photograph of his, shot in his house at Oyster Bay in Long Island that he built and designed himself. It became a celebrated salon, where all the talents of that time came to stay and visit. People like Salvador Dali, Chanel, Noell Coward and everybody who had a true creative spirit in them were welcomed by Horst. This image has such a sense of sophistication marked by Horst's genius for lighting and mood.
The Power of Photography #542
Horst P. Horst, Birthday Gloves, New York, 1947,

"I don't think photography has anything remotely to do with the brain. It has to do with eye appeal."

~Horst

Horst first apprenticed with Le Corbusier in Paris and one of his many"take aways" from that experience was how to architecturally construct apicture plane. He was a master of how light falls on an object and how tobalance it with shadow. This is one of my favorite all time Horst images. A woman wearing whitegloves holding a round object. Is she Eve tempting Adam on his birthdaywith an apple? The crumpled tissue paper is blocking her face and bodyfrom view. It all just adds to the elegance and mystery of this supremely beautiful image.
George Hoyningen-Huene (Russia, 1900-1968)

“I appreciated the fact that the model would have to understand how the gown moved and how she would behave in that particular dress so that it didn’t look as if she just put it on for a photograph but was part and parcel of it, that the dress really actually belonged to her.”

~ George Hoyningen-Huene
The Power of Photography #418

George Hoyningen-Huene was born into the privileged world of the Russian aristocracy at the turn of the century. In Paris, as a refugee from the Revolution, he worked for Vogue, first as an illustrator and then as a supremely successful fashion photographer. As chief photographer at French Vogue, he created his own unique style and was known above all for his stylish studio compositions using shadows and elaborate lighting to evoke the “Huene” mood.

Toto Koopman had her own amazing life. She was a Dutch-Javanese model who wound up in Paris in the 1930s and during the Second World War served as a spy for the Italian Resistance. She was captured and held as a prisoner in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Hers is a fascinating story in itself.
Artworks
The Power of Photography #180
Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) Charles James Dresses, 1948

“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert the integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it safe, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary."

~ Cecil Beaton

Cecil Beaton was a true renaissance man - writer, diarist, playwright, painter, illustrator, set designer, costume designer, dandy and not least one of the great 20th Century photographers. This is one of his greatest photographs. On June 1st, 1948, nine fashion models, including the great Carmen Dell'Orefice and Dorian Leigh, gathered at French and Co., the celebrated antiques dealer on Park Avenue, to have their photograph taken decked out in Charles James's exquisite gowns. James was perhaps the most revered designer of his generation who had his European counterparts like Dior and Balenciaga in awe. Every garment he produced was deemed to be a work of art. James and Beaton had first met at school at Harrow in England. Just imagine how difficult it was to choreograph and light nine models and get nine separate “performances“ out of them to create a cohesive narrative. Very few photographers had the experience and genius to pull it off but out of it came one of the most important images in the history of fashion photography.

Beaton’s pithy wit was sometimes on a par with Oscar Wilde. As Cecil once said, “The truly fashionable are beyond fashion.”
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Lillian Bassman (United States, 1917-2012)

"Lillian made visible that heart breaking invisible place between the appearance and the disappearance of things."

~ Richard Avedon

One of the greatest fashion photographers ever, Lillian never ceased to amaze me with her energy and determination to always challenge herself. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1917, she entered the fashion trade through the design class of famed art director Alexey Brodovitch along with Richard Avedon and Irving Penn. Noticing her astute visual talents, Brodovitch appointed Bassman as his Co-Art Director in the founding of "Junior Bazaar" magazine in 1945. Here she helped launch the careers of many notable photographers of the century including giving early assignments to Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Leslie Gill, Arnold Newman, Paul Himmel and many more. After the publication was absorbed by Harper's Bazaar and at the urging of her colleagues, Bassman began to photograph the models she worked with and quickly developed a body of work that was unlike any other fashion images of the period. They still look as fresh and innovative today as the day they were taken.

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The Power of Photography #243
William Klein (American 1926-2022)

“I had neither training nor complexes. By necessity and choice, I decided that anything would have to go. A technique of no taboos: blur, grain, contrast, cock-eyed framing, accidents, whatever happens.”

~ William Klein

This is one of the most revered images in the history of fashion photography. Easy to see why. Enfant terrible William Klein and total maverick shot it for French Vogue in 1960 in Rome. He was always pushing barriers. That was ingrained into his DNA and personality. He liked to poke fun at the artificiality and snobbishness of the fashion world and later made a satirical feature film “Who are you Polly Magoo?” that did just that.

This was his vision for this shot. Two models in black and white dresses passing one another on the Piazza di Spagna, the stripes of the model’s dresses echoing the stripes of the pedestrian crossing. He asked them to walk back and forth and do double takes reacting to the identical dress theother was wearing. Bill was shooting from afar with a telephoto lens. It started off pretty well but then havoc started to occur. People began to stop and stare and the traffic surrounding the square came to a virtual stand still. I once tried to drive in Rome and have been shell shocked ever since. The two un-chaperoned models began to attract unwanted attention from lots of hot-blooded Roman men who may have mistaken them for high end escorts. The Vogue stylist was tearing her hair out fearing for the safety of the models and the shoot had to be shut down because of all the chaos erupting everywhere but not before Klein got his legendary shot. The famous models Simone D’Aillencourt and Nina de Voogt lived to fight many other days with Klein and all the other great photographers they got to collaborate with. All in a day’s work right?
The Power of Photography #576
Louis Faurer (American 1916-2001) NEW YORK, NY (TIMES SQUARE), 1947

“Louis Faurer, a newcomer in the field of documentary reporting, is a lyricist with a camera, a seeker and finder of magic in some of the highways and byways of life.”

~ Edward Steichen 1948

The great Edward Steichen wrote these very accurate words about Faurer on the occasion of Steichen’s first large survey exhibition of photography at the Museum of Modern Art - which included Faurer. I always sensed that Faurer was somewhat of a tortured romantic as is evidenced by this haunting, longing image of a solitary woman in Times Square. What is her story? I’m sure Faurer never knew and neither will we, but it doesn’t matter. It is still beautiful.
The Power of Photography #295
Georges Dambier (France 1925-2011)
Georges’s talent was recognized early on by the talented Helene Lazareff, the creative director of French Elle. She encouraged his ideas to take these glorious models out into the streets of Paris away from the normal stilted shots which emanated from the rigid studio settings. With his charm and great sense of humor he elicited wonderful “performances” from them as if he were directing a movie. He had a great sense of style and design and really was the key photographer to emerge from that glorious era of French Elle. He made fashion fun and every great model at the time wanted to work with him.

After he retired from photography he left Paris to open a beautiful small hotel in the French countryside where he was equally successful - a nice coda to a busy and hectic career.
The Power of Photography #671
William Helburn (United States, 1924 - 2020)

“The fashion photographer always has so much of his/her inner self contributing. Their taste, their inner being. Fashion photographers have to take a product and beautify and enhance every aspect of it”

~ William Helburn

Bill was much sought after in the 1950’s and 1960’s to do just this. Here he was hired to add even more beauty to this exquisite Dior creation. He worked with all the best models of this era including the great Dovima and he took her to pose under the El Subway, later to be pulled down, but not before he immortalized them both.
The Power of Photography #582
Ted Croner 1922-2005. Home of the Brave, 1947-48

“Being in New York, I was most impressed with the loneliness and latent show of emotions in the subways and cafeterias. They weren’t pictures of people. They were pictures of the way I felt.”

~ Ted Croner

Ted was one of the celebrated Alexey Brodovitch’s most talented studentsin his famous teaching “lab”. He found his voice on the streets of NewYork exploring its urban rhythm and human nuances. This was one of his breakthrough images set against the marquee of one of the most powerful and gritty films of the 1940’s.
“When I take pictures I let reality decide what to do. I only take one when I’m deeply moved by what I see.”

~ Louis Stettner

Louis was mentored and encouraged by the great Paris-based, Hungarian-born photographer, Brassaï. Brassaï was renown more than anything forhis incredible night time images shot in Paris in the 1930’s.It was hard for Stettner not to have been influenced by one of his keyteachers. Louis always told me that “Times Square” was the belly button of New York. He lived nearby and would often go there in the eveningwith his camera. People would come from all over New York to take in amovie, or a play or just to walk around. He was fascinated by the constant waves of humanity to be found there.

I also think on this particular night he must have also been stimulated intoaction by the billboard for Elia Kazan's great, great film “On TheWaterfront”. No one who saw it when they were young could ever forget the power of it, not to mention Brando’s haunting performance.
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