Horst P. Horst

HORST P. HORST
Photographs

September 4 through October 11, 2008
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 4, 7-9 p.m.

The Fahey/Klein Gallery is pleased to present one of the great master photographers of the twentieth century, Horst P. Horst. In his sixty-year career, Horst's name became synonymous with the creation of images of elegance, style and glamour. Horst's classic and well-designed technique, characterized by his use of studio atmosphere, silhouette, dramatic lighting and highly posed models, became the epitome of elegance and grace in fashion photography.

This exhibition, of Silver Gelatin and Platinum photographs, features a selection of Horst's fashion, nude, and portrait photographs, including such iconic images as "Mainbocher Corset, Paris, 1939", "Round the Clock I, New York, 1987," and "Lisa, V.O.G.U.E., New York, 1940".

Horst was born in Germany in 1906. He studied architecture at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hamburg and later was a student - apprentice for the architect Le Corbusier in Paris in 1930. He met Baron George Hoyningen-Heune, then a photographer for Vogue in Paris, who was to become Horst's mentor and lifelong friend. Huene introduced Horst both to photography and to the beau monde of Europe - the most elite artists, actors, couturiers, aristocrats and intellectuals of the era. It was during the avant-garde atmosphere of the 20's and 30's, heavily influenced by the Bauhaus, Neue Sachlichekit and Art Deco movements that Horst's signature style began to take shape. In 1931, Horst began a long association with various magazines, primarily "Vogue" and "House and Garden". In March 1991, a major Horst retrospective was exhibited at the Louvre's Musee des Arts de la mode.