BOOK REVIEW: Around That Time: Horst at Home in Vogue

Around That Time: Horst at Home in Vogue

by Valentine Lawford and Ivan Shaw, photography by Horst P. Horst.

Foreword by Hamish Bowles

Publisher: Abrams.

ISBN 978-1-4197-2224-0

UK £45.00

I have to admit that the idea of this book was on my wish list as I was entranced by the 1968 Vogue’s Book of Houses, Gardens, People, which has now become a much sought after book. Now it has been updated in this glorious volume which features the masterful photography of Horst P Horst and the absorbing essays on the homes and their residents by Horst’s partner the writer Valentine Lawford. It is the perfect combination and gives us fascinating insights into society, the arts and politics between 1938 and 1985. A huge thank you to all for this great, delightful book which will become a classic!

http://abramsandchronicle.co.uk/books/architecture-and-interiors/9781419722240-around-that-time

Related Matters

Oct24

Studio Sem, Pietrasanta, 2016,
Henryk Hetflaisz

It was a great delight to meet the sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld OBE again at the opening of her exhibition Hard Beauty at the Hignell Gallery in Mayfair’s Shepherd Street (hignellgallery.com). Her exceptional sculptures which combine the ideas of abstraction and figuration are tours de force which take great skill and verve to create as there are elements of risk in that process.

Helaine Blumenfeld OBE,
Taking Risks, Terracotta, 2016,
Courtesy Hignell Gallery, ‎Henryk Hetflaisz -001

Just a short walk away in Bruton Street you still have the chance to see an exhibition (until 29^th October) devoted to Helaine’s father-in-law the renowned photographer Erwin Blumenfeld. Entitled Erwin Blumenfeld: From Dada to Vogue, it is being shown at Osborne Samuel (www.osbornesamuel.com) and comprises of a mixture of original photographs, drawings collages and personal ephemera which have come from his family.

Erwin Blumenfeld,
Vogue, Paris, 1938,
Silver Gelatin Print,
Courtesy Osborne Samuel

This exhibition’s importance is highlighted by its curator Lou Proud who says: It is simply not possible to put into few words the importance of Erwin Blumenfeld’s work, let alone its stand alone beauty and ever resounding influence on today’s image makers. It’s fascinating how someone who did everything possible to stretch, bend and break the existing boundaries of traditional photography, managed to create works that reach far beyond what we could ever dream that the medium of photography would and could deliver, leaving us In Memoriam, with what only can be described as ‘solidified magic’.

Erwin Blumenfeld,
Shadowed Silhouettes, 1953,
Silver Gelatin Print,
Courtesy Osborne Samuel

While writing about Osborne Samuel it seems right to mention that they were behind the loan of Lynn Chadwick’s Walking Woman (1984) to Salisbury Cathedral where it can be seen on the West Lawn. The gallery has had a long relationship with the Cathedral (www.salisburycathedral.org.uk).

Lynn Chadwick
Walking Woman (1984)
Credit Ash Mill

Room Portraits by Jeremiah Goodman

Oct12

Jeremiah – Inspired Interiors, Room Portraits by Jeremiah Goodman, Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler, 39 Brook Street, London W1, until 5^th December 2016

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To me this is the perfect subject for the last exhibition that Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler will host in the famous Yellow Room, so beloved by Nancy Lancaster, before they finally move out completely to Pimlico Road and Fulham Road. It has been curated by Dean Rhys Morgan.

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The American artist Jeremiah Goodman (b. 1922) is renowned for his evocative pictures of interiors. After studying at the Franklin School of Professional Art he became a successful advertising illustrator with his work appearing in magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and Interior Design Magazine. It will come as no surprise that his work attracted the interest of architects, industrial and interior designers.

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Goodman was always interested in creating portraits of interiors but a meeting with the renowned actor Sir John Gielgud in 1948 changed things. Jeremiah sums it up: ‘Before I met him I painted interiors for my own pleasure, but he invited me to England, where I went in 1949, and began to introduce me to his friends. It was all very Brideshead Revisited and I found myself in the company of people like Cecil Beaton, John Fowler and Ivor Novello. I was invited to stay in glorious country houses.’ Since then he has been creating portraits of rooms from the homes of the rich and famous.

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His distinctive informal style – often using transparent watercolour and opaque gouache on illustration board – perfectly captures details on textiles and the patterns of light in these exquisite rooms. These room portraits are the perfect finale for the Yellow Room and I seriously encourage you to see them.

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www.jeremiahgoodman.com

www.sibylcolefax.com

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GUY BOURDIN – 2 “TAKES”

Feb23

Here is “take” 1

Guy Bourdin: Image Maker, Embankment Galleries, South Wing, Somerset House, London WC2, until 15^th March 2015

Guy Bourdin
Vogue Paris, May 1970
© Guy Bourdin

In this show, the largest ever held in the UK, Guy Bourdin’s career as a fashion photographer is delineated from his early days as a protégé of the Surrealist photographer Man Ray to a master craftsman who photographed fashion for magazines such as Vogue Paris and brands like Charles Jourdan and Chanel creating a world both colourful and strange. This was achieved by making the product play the second leading part to the image.

Guy Bourdin
British Vogue, September 1975
© Guy Bourdin

This is encapsulated through colour and black-and-white images and Super-8 films (he was among the pioneers of fashion film). As well as being a self-taught photographer he had always been a painter and a selection of paintings, sketches and working drawings illustrate how this helped his approach to his photographic images. A highlight of the exhibition is the 1979 Walking Legs’ campaign for Charles Jourdan which is being shown in full.

This brings us to “take” 2

Guy Bourdin ‘Walking Legs’, Michael Hoppen Gallery, 3 Jubilee Place, London SW3, until 28th March 2015

Guy Bourdin
Charles Jourdan, 1979
© Guy Bourdin Estate. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery

The gallery compliments the above show with this one focusing on the 1979 Charles Jourdan campaign. The locations were photographed on a car journey from London to Brighton – other than the locations all that can be seen is a pair of mannequin legs and Charles Jourdans’s creations.

www.somersethouse.org.uk

michaelhoppengallery.com

Abbott and Holder

Dec3

BRIAN STONEHOUSE M.B.E. (1918-1998), Abbott and Holder, 30 Museum Street, London WC1, until 23rd December

The Checked Dress. Watercolour and gouache with fibre-tip pen on pink paper. Shaped for layout. Signed. For Vogue, circa 1955. Provenance: The artist’s estate. Stamped ‘Stonehouse Estate / A and H’ verso. 24.5×18 inches (irregular). Framed size: 32×25.25

This selling exhibition of forty works celebrates the recently published Brian Stonehouse: Artist, Soldier, War Hero, Fashion Illustrator (by Frederic A. Sharf with Michelle Finamore, Curator of Fashion Arts, Boston Museum of Fine Arts). The museum is where the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf collection of Brian Stonehouse works is housed.

The Sports Shirt. Charcoal and ink with pastel. For an American fashion magazine, probably Vogue, circa 1960. Provenance: The artist’s estate. Stamped ‘Stonehouse Estate / A and H’ verso. 23.5×15 inches. Framed: 31×21.5 inches

Stonehouse, a young art student studying fashion illustration, joined the Royal Artillery at the beginning of the war but soon became a part of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). He was sent to France as a radio operator but three and a half months later was caught by the Gestapo, tortured, given a death sentence and then selected for slave labour He spent the subsequent war years in three French prisons and five concentration and labour camps, including Dachau. He still managed to continue to draw in some of the camps.

The Yellow Bathing Costume. Watercolour and gouache on tan paper. Shaped for layout. For an American fashion magazine, probably Vogue, circa 1955. Provenance: The artist’s estate. Stamped ‘Stonehouse Estate / A and H’ verso. 21×16 inches (irregular). Framed: 29×23.5 inches.

Whilst at the preparation for the War Crimes Tribunals he fortuitously met an American Major Harry Haller who encouraged him to come to the USA and there he did society portraits. Vogue’s fashion editor Jessica Daves liked his artistic style and as a result of this in 1952 he became the first new fashion illustrator the magazine had taken on since 1939. He remained with them until 1962.

A Well Dresssed Man. Charcoal, ink and gouache on blue/grey card. For an American fashion magazine, probably Vogue, circa 1960. Provenance: The artist’s estate. Stamped ‘Stonehouse Estate / A and H’ verso. 26×15 inches. Framed: 33.5×22 inches.

abbottandholder.co.uk

Brian Stonehouse: Artist, Soldier, War Hero, Fashion Illustrator by Frederic A. Sharf with Michelle Finamore, Curator of Fashion Arts, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

http://www.abbottandholder-thelist.co.uk/brian-stonehouse-vogue/

Horst: Photographer of Style

Oct19

Horst: Photographer of Style, V&A Museum, London SW7, until 4th January 2015

Horst directing fashion shoot with Lisa Fonssagrives
1949
Photo by Roy Stevens /Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images

This is a fittingly exhaustive exhibition celebrating the life and achievements of the celebrated German-born photographer Horst P. Horst (1906-1999). For most of his sixty year career Horst worked in Paris and New York and what a body of work he produced – fashion, society, travel photographs, nude studies, patterns from nature and surreal-inspired studies.

Patterns from Nature Photographic Collage c. 1945 © Condé Nast / Horst Estate

His inspirations and way of working are also shown such as in the famous Mainbocher Corset photograph. There are over 90 Vogue covers on show as well interactive screens and a three-sided projection which show some of the most beautiful homes of the rich and famous which he did for his friend, the legendary, Diana Vreeland when she was editor of House and Garden and Vogue.

Installation image of Horst – Photographer of Style
(c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The exhibition covers his life from the early 1930s onwards and among those we meet along the way are Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Salvador Dalí and Jean-Michel Frank. Also you will encounter stars like Rita Hayworth, Bette Davis, Vivien Leigh, Noël Coward, Ginger Rogers, Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford. Through his work we meet his models from over the decades, including Lisa Fonssagrives, Helen Bennett, Lyla Zelensky, Carmen Dell’Orefice, Muriel Maxwell and Dorian Leigh. Nor should I forget to mention the countries he visited and photographed in the 40s and 50s – Israel, Iran, Syria, Italy and Morocco.

Marlene Dietrich, New York 1942 © Condé Nast / Horst Estate

It is a very “social” exhibition and truly worthy of this talented photographer and is a must for both those who know and those who do not know his work. Prepare to be caught up in his very special world of photography.

Corset by Detolle for Mainbocher 1939 © Condé Nast / Horst Estate

http://www.vam.ac.uk/horst | #Horst

View of ruins at the palace of Persepolis, Persia 1949 © Condé Nast / Horst Estate

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