the main symbolism in the photographs. But the
design and architectural tendencies Horst expres-
sed added unusual surprises to his pictures. He
was able to strike the right balance between the
model, the garment, and the architectural sur-
roundings. Horst was able to direct and capture
a pose that under other circumstances would have
looked forced and unnatural, infused with an ele-
gance of design to make his photographs memor-
able masterpieces.
Horst was also a master of studio lighting, some-
times working three days on a single set-up. He was
not afraid to use numerous lights in his set-ups to
create the dramatic effects that he felt his photo-
graphs needed. One of his most timeless photo-
graphs,Mainbocher’s Pink Satin Corset, published
in AmericanVoguein 1939, was also the subject of
a video by Madonna, making it an enduring icon.
Louise Dahl-Wolfe was the first woman fashion
photographer to reach prominence in the 1930s
and is known for her long tenure withHarper’s
Bazaar. Dahl-Wolfe took fashion out into the
open and used deserts, beaches, and various exotic
locations as her backdrops. While other fashion
photographers had sometimes photographed the
out-of-doors, notably Heune’sSwimwear by Izod
(also known asDivers) of 1930, Louise Dahl-Wolfe
raised to it into a new art form, sweeping away the
‘‘Greek statue’’ genre of fashion photography.
Another female practitioner, although working in
a less distinctive style, was the Berlin-based Ger-
maine Krull. American Lee Miller, whose notoriety
as a model overshadowed her work behind the
camera, was another fashion photographer based
in Europe during this period.
Hungarian Martin Munkacsi, New York’s lead-
ing fashion photographer during the 1930s and
1940s, left Germany and immigrated to the United
States in 1934. That year, he signed an exclusive
contract withHarper’s Bazaar, which under Car-
mel Snow’s editorship and Alexey Brodovitch’s art
direction established itself as the most sophisticated
fashion magazine of the era. He too promoted the
highly active style that showed models and clothes
in motion, often out on the street, inspiring the
upcoming generation of American photographers.
Other important practitioners of fashion photogra-
phy between the wars, working out of Paris and
New York, are Brassai, Erwin Blumenfeld, Arnold
Genthe, George Platt Lynes, John Rawlings, Ed-
ward Steichen, and Maurice Tabard.
Irving Penn and Richard Avedon emerged into
prominence following World War II. Richard Ave-
don was born in 1923, graduated from Columbia
University in 1941, and studied with Alexey Bro-
dovitch at the New School for Social Research
from 1944 until 1950. He was hired atHarper’s
Bazaaras a staff photographer in 1945, and held
that position for twenty years. He also photo-
graphed the French collections in Paris for both
Harper’s BazaarandVoguefrom 1947 until 1984.
He photographed his subjects in sparse settings,
stripping away all extraneous elements so that the
viewer would concentrate only on the sitter. One of
his many books,In the American West, published
in 1985, exemplifies this principle. All of his sub-
jects were photographed against a clean white
background and the visual focus was completely
on the sitter.
Irving Penn was born in 1917 in Plainfield, New
Jersey, and following his education in public
schools enrolled at the Philadelphia Museum
School of Art at age 18. He studied advertising
design with Alexey Brodovitch and his first job,
working for Alexander Lieberman atVogue, was
to suggest covers for the magazine. His first photo-
graphic cover was published in the October 1943
issue of the magazine and he continues to contri-
bute work. His photographic work covers not only
fashion and portraiture, but also still lifes and
nudes. His work shows a similar sparseness of
backgrounds as Avedon’s, but with some impor-
tant departures. Early in Penn’s career he started
to use large moveable walls, which he placed at
right angles to each other. Into this corner he
placed his subjects, giving them and us, a sense of
tight space. He discovered a different form of tight
space when he rented a local photographer’s studio
in the Andes Mountains following a fashion as-
signment in 1948. The studio had a large north-
light window as the sole source of illumination and
a plain backdrop with a non-descript floor in
which he photographed the villagers. During the
next few years he constructed a tent with a similar
lighting scheme that traveled with him on overseas
trips. The bookWorlds in a Small Roomwas the
result of these travels.
The major shift in fashion photography that
came with both of these photographers was the
elimination of the sumptuous settings—glamorous
drawing rooms, or theatre locations—and sense of
aristocracy, which had been greatly eroded by the
work of Munkacsi and by that of William Klein
and Louis Faurer, who practiced grainy, blurred
styles emphasizing personal expression during the
waning years of World War II and in the immedi-
ate postwar era. Toni Frissell, who had apprenticed
with Cecil Beaton, practiced a casual, straightfor-
ward style capturing active, vital women. German-
born Herman Landshof also made youthful, activeFASHION PHOTOGRAPHY