George Hoyningen-Huene

GEORGE HOYNINGEN-HUENE
Photographs

September 9, 2010 through October 16, 2010
Opening Reception Thursday, September 9, 7-9 pm

The Fahey/Klein Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of Estate stamped platinum fashion photographs by George Hoyningen-Huene, an influential figure in the early world of fashion photography.

Huene was born in 1900, into an aristocratic family in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was through the connection of his mother and sister that Huene was able to secure work making fashion sketches for the French editions of Vogue. By Huene’s early twenties, he began to work as an illustrator and later a photographer for Vogue— establishing himself as the Chief of Photography for French Vogue by 1925. From the beginning, Huene’s sitters and models “came from the glamorous worlds of society and the theater. Huene became one of fashion and society’s great chroniclers, working first for Paris, Vogue, and then for Harper’s Bazaar, New York.” (John Esten, Contemporary Photography). In 1931, Hoyningen-Huene first met Horst P. Horst, who later became his model, collaborator, and partner, as well as a contributing photographer to French and American Vogue. “

(Huene) had a vision of a remote and elusive feminine ideal best portrayed, he felt, by the serenity of classic Greek sculpture. In his own most characteristic pictures, there is a sense of statuesque monumentality, humanized by the sitter’s air of tranquility—an irresistible image that women sought to make their own by wearing clothes like those photographed.” (John Esten, Ibid.)

After World War II, Huene moved to Los Angeles and began working with friend and collaborator, Hollywood director George Cukor. This enabled Huene to become personally involved with the direction, filming, make-up, costume, décor, and generally all aspects of film making. He also taught photography at the Art Center School in Los Angeles. George Hoyningen-Huene died at the age of 68, in Los Angeles.

George Hoyningen-Huene and Horst P. Horst were both seminal Fashion photographers beginning in the 1930’s. They were longtime friends, associates, and partners in the world of photography. Upon Huene’s death in 1968, Horst inherited the Huene Estate. In the 1980’s, Horst began making beautiful, high quality platinum palladium photographs of his own images as well as a few selected Huene images, including “The Divers” and “Horst Torso”. Horst was taken by the luscious luminosity of these platinum prints, and always intended to make platinum palladium prints from Huene’s negatives. Unfortunately, this process was cut short due to Horst’s death in 1999.

In 2007, R.J Horst, Horst P. Horst’s son and the Executor of the Horst Estate, proceeded with Horst’s wish to make platinum palladium prints from Huene’s work. These large platinum photographs were originally printed to complement a major Hoyningen-Huene retrospective in St. Petersburg, Russia. R.J. Horst will donate the profits from the sale of these photographs to the International Center for Photography, New York. Many of the platinum prints on view in this exhibition have not previously been available to collectors.