Board_Advisors_etc 3..5

1996 Publishing Image Paradigms: Conceptual Maneuvers
in Recent Photography; Portland Institute for Contem-
porary Art, Portland, Oregon
Crossing the Frontier: Photographs of the Developing
West, 1849 to the Present; San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art, San Francisco, California

Selected Works

Disneyland, California, 1979
Provincetown, Massachusetts, 1979
San Francisco, California, 1979
New York, New York, 1979
Washington, D.C., 1982
Paris, France, 1983
Niagara Falls, New York, 1984
Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, 1986

Lake Moraine, Canada, 1986

Banff National Park, Canadian Rockies, 1986

Grand Canyon, Arizona, 1987

Further Reading

Becker, Robert. ‘‘Modern Masters: Tseng Kwong Chi.’’

Interview(May 1987): 103–131.

Blinderman, Barry.Tseng Kwong Chi: The Expeditionary

Works. Houston, TX: Houston Center for Photography,

1992.

Martin, Richard. ‘‘East Meets West Meets North By North-

west: Tseng Kwong Chi in the Badlands and at Mount

Rushmore.’’Arts Magazine61, no. 2 (October 1986):

72–73.

Martin, Richard.Tseng Kwong Chi. Kyoto, Japan: Kyoto

Shoin International Co., Ltd., 1989.

DEBORAH TURBEVILLE

American

Deborah Turbeville is known for her compelling
and controversial fashion images, many of which,
along with personal work, have entered the fine
arts market and been exhibited internationally.
She was born and raised in New England and
moved to New York City when she was 19, plan-
ning a career on the stage. Needing work, she
began her fashion career as a model and assistant
to designer Claire McCardell, who proved to be an
important influence. With the experience and con-
tacts she gained at that job she moved on to editor-
ial positions at several magazines, includingLadies’
Home Journal,Harper’s Bazaar, andMademoiselle.
In 1972, she switched roles to that of photographer
and became one of a small group of image-makers
(including Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin) who
profoundly changed the aesthetics of fashion
photography in the 1970s.
In Turbeville’s work, the clothes were secondary
to the mood, which was created by taking soft-
focused, grainy images of women in empty or dere-
lict settings. ‘‘In what kind of mood would a
woman be, wearing whatever? I go into a woman’s
private world, where you never go. It’s a moment
frozen in time. I like to hear a clock ticking in my
pictures’’ (Taylor). Eerily ambiguous situations

invited the viewer to project his or her own story

onto the scenario, leading to some controversy. For

instance, one series of models in swimwear, which

was set in a bath-house and featured inVoguein

1975, was seen by critic Gene Thornton as featur-

ing ‘‘...ladies...writhing in agony on the floor or

moping about in catatonic trances...,’’ while Hilton

Kramer felt that ‘‘its ‘Marat/Sade’ imagery leaves

one wondering if we have not moved beyond the

boundaries of fashion photography into something

more pathological.’’

Turbeville was not the first fashion photographer

to create unsettling photographs: Cecil Beaton

placed a model in front of a bombed out building

in 1945, and Diane Arbus perched startled-looking

twin boys on the lap of their hirsuit father in 1969,

among other examples. However, Turbeville’s de-

gree of artistic experimentation was part of a move-

ment away from a focus on the clothes and towards

a more ambiguous, inventive, and often narrative

way of engaging the fashion viewer.

Turbeville’s unique approach came in part from

her paucity of formal photographic training. In

1966, she took her first photographs in Yugoslavia:

the images were out of focus, but compelling. She

then took a six-month seminar with Richard Ave-

don and painter and art editor Marvin Israel, and

spent time watching films for narrative inspiration

TSENG KWONG CHI