Horst: Photographer of Style Exhibition at V&A

Horst was a German-American fashion photographer. (1906-1999)

In a previous post I was getting excited about going to his exhibition "Photographer of Style" at the V&A, London.

Last Sunday I finally went to see the exhibition, Mum and I were in the exhibition over an hour engaged in his incredible career.

Entered the room of the exhibition into a world of Horst. From photos of his life including childhood photographs, including a baby photo of Horst and his brother Heinz.
 

There were mostly black and white photographs from the start of his early career.

Horst's work: 

Surrealism - 1930s
Horst's photographs featured still life and surreal dress designs by his friend Elsa Schiaparelli and collaborated with artist Salvador Dali. 
One of my favourites and most celebrated photographs of the surrealism era is Mainbocher Corset (1939) - Vogue 1939, Gelatin silver print. The corset was retouched to make it look close fitting. 

Travel - 1949 Horst travelled to the Middle East.

Studio work - 1940s Horst worked in the Conde' Nast studio 

1930s - Colour photography

Horst created stunning colourful Vogue covers. A room full of large scale prints, we entered a world of Vogue. A display of his Vogue covers, very different to what we have now but truly stunning. 

Few vintage prints exist, so are rarely exhibited. "Colour capture took place on a transparency which could be reproduced on the magazine page without the need to create a photographic print."

Nude - 1950's  - Male nude figures. 

The female form is more pleasant on the eye than male. Females have shape and curves, you usually see a lot of female nude rather than male. However, I never thought I'd find a male nude photograph that was "pretty' to look at. (sounds strange to say that).

Basically, Horst captured male nudes in a very creative and artistic way.

"Horst takes the inert clay of human flesh and models it into the decorative shapes of his own devising. Every gesture of his models is planned, every line controlled and coordinated to the whole of the picture. Some gestures look natural and careless, because carefulled rehearsed; the others, like Voltaire's god, were invented by the artist because they did not exist" - Art director of American Vogue (1929-1978) [V&A]

House & Garden - 1970's

The exhibition displayed his sketchbooks showing his sketches and contact sheets. The contact sheets showed crop marks. There were a couple of photos showing the studio and lighting not cropped out of the photo. This was interesting to see as nowadays you would crop this out if this had occurred.

An inspirational photographer, he had amazing use of angles for lighting his subjects.

In the 'Vogue' room, this photo of Jean Patcheet in Brigance bathing suit, 1951, Vogue, mum and I giggled as we noticed the model has hairy legs, something that would be airbrushed out now. But this photo is still beautiful, the pink is so striking, the pose is simple and the lighting.

I spent ages trying to be selective on which postcards to buy, I had too many favourites! I settled on these four which I am going to frame (need to buy a 4 photo frame) and display in my office. 

1: Mainbacher Corset modelled by Madame Bernon, Gelatin silver print, Vogue 1939

2: Modelled by Susann Shaw, new colour print from an original transparency, Vogue 1943

3: Round the Clock, Platinum-Palladium print, 1987

4: New colour print from an original transparency, Vogue 1941