Horst Photography Is A Study in Elegance, Style and Rarefied Glamour

In the history of twentieth-century fashion and portrait photography, Horst's contribution figures as one of the most artistically significant and long lasting, spanning as it did the sixty years between 1931 and 1991. During this period, his name became legendary as a one-word photographic byline, and his photographs came to be seen as synonymous with the creation of images of elegance, style and rarefied glamour.

Born on 14 August 1906, Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann was the second son of a prosperous middle class Protestant shop owner, Max Bohrmann and his wife, Klara Schoenbrodt.

The first pictures that carried a Horst credit line appeared in the December 1931 issue of French Vogue. It was a full-page advertisement showing a model in black velvet holding a Klytia scent bottle in one hand with the other hand raised elegantly above it... Horst's real breakthrough as a published fashion and portrait photographer was in the pages of British Vogue... starting with the 30 March 1932 issue showing three fashion studies and a full-page portrait of the daughter of Sir James Dunn, the art patron and supporter of Surrealism.

War was declared between America and Germany on 7 December 1941. Horst was called up for service, though he was not officially enrolled until July 1943. The late 1930s and early 1940s were his most productive years, during which he excelled at working with 10-x-8 inch colour transparencies both for covers and for portrait and fashion sittings...

As a typical example of wartime escapism, the Rita Hayworth film Cover Girl (1944) provided Horst with the opportunity to produce one of his most sumptuous film-star covers in a montage of seven different portraits of the cover girl Susann Shaw set against a silk design. His picture of Loretta Young became an almost immediate classic when it was featured in a special edition of Vogue which included masterpieces of photography selected by (classic photographer Edward) Steichen to show off the first hundred years of the medium.

This is one of Coco Chanel's favorite photographs of herself. I can't blame her. She looks stunning and elegant. Look at that necklace!

The 1960s started well for American Vogue with the appointment of the larger than life 'Empress of Fashion', Diana Vreeland, as Editor-in-Chief. Vreeland served from 1961 until 1971, when a change of approach was deemed necessary. Horst was assigned some of the leading players of the time and produced a number of archetypal images of this energetic decade.

The 1970s remains the decade that good, timeless style overlooked, and work for Horst was necessarily sparse... However, Horst's rediscovery by a new group of 1980's style-seeking enthusiasts resulted in increasing commissions...

Horst was commissioned to take nine photographs which appeared in February 1980. This was the most popular issue of Life in that year, selling 1.5 million copies. It led to a book contract and continued work with (editor James) Watters, whose encyclopedic knowledge of early Hollywood stars made him the ideal interviewer as the two men travelled round America to produce their best-selling book Return Engagement: Faces to Remember - Then and Now (1984).

Horst's career can be said to have reached Old Master status when the world's most famous pop goddess, Madonna, created her celebrated hymn to classic fashion photography with her single Vogue in 1990. In the video directed by David Fincher, she posed as a recreation of Horst's most iconic fashion image, a model seen from behind, wearing a partially tied, back-laced corset made by Detolle.

In his approach to portraiture, Horst set out to create a parallel aspirational universe in which his subjects became mysterious and alluring. Bruce Weber, one of many photographers influenced by Horst, artfully described his feelings about Horst's work in a 1992 television documentary: 'The elegance of his photographs ... took you to another place, very beautifully ... the untouchable quality of the people is really interesting as it gives you something of a distance ... it's like seeing somebody from another world ... and you wonder who that person is and you really want to know that person and really want to fall in love with that person".

~~~

What a talent. Oh, to be photographed by this master. He was quite racy for his time. I need to get my hot little hands on one of his books and the 1980's Life magazine. What do you think of his dramatic work and his use of contrast with extreme black and white? How would you describe it?

xo,

Christina

-- excerpted from Terrence Pepper's essay "Always in Vogue" from the book Horst Portraits, 60 Years of Style. National Portrait Gallery, London, 2001