photographs exemplify Horst’s style and capture
the spirit of the 1930s. Horst himself conveyed the
sophistication of the era: he was handsome, charm-
ing, and gregarious. He and photography were the
perfect match for a ‘‘wonderful life,’’ which gave
him entre ́e to homes, gardens, and soirees. He said
‘‘I like taking photographs, because I like life. And
I like photographing people best of all, because
most of all I love humanity.’’
During a career spanning over half a century,
Horst P. Horst gave us the definitive portraits of
such diverse twentieth century figures such as fash-
ion icons the Duchess of Windsor, Consuelo Bal-
san, The Baroness Pauline de Rothschild, and Elsa
Schiaparelli; movie stars and singers Marlene Die-
trich, Mistinguett, and Mary Martin; artists Salva-
dor Dali, Jean Cocteau, and Cy Twombly; writer
Gertrude Stein; and a host of others. Each of these
portraits capture the personality and style of the
sitter while at the same time conveying enduring
qualities that has allowed it to become a classic.
Horst said of Schiaparelli ‘‘she was daring and
knew how to show it successfully,’’ a phrase that
accurately describes him as well.
Born in 1906 in Weissenfels-an-der-Saale in Ger-
many, the son of a merchant, Horst originally came
to Paris to study architecture with Le Corbusier.
After meeting George Hoyningen-Huene, already
established as the French capital’s premier portrait
and fashion photographer, he turned instead to
photography. The 1930 Huene photographThe
Diversof a young Horst, muscular and handsome
in an Izod bathing suit, paired with a female model
at the end of a diving board, is a watershed image,
a signal of the androgyny and the drama that
characterized the worlds of high society and art of
the 1930s.
Horst’s earliest photographic works echo
Huene’s cool classicism. But his dramatic lighting,
circular backlighting, and use of the silhouette, were
his own innovations and rapidly were established as
his signature. Within a few years, Horst developed a
more ornamental style. He may not have revolutio-
nized fashion photography, but he certainly per-
fected it. He had a preference for a richly packed
studio, a continued use of props, and complicated
lighting effects. His trompe l’oeil (a photograph
within a photograph) shots were among his most
original. In 1936, Horst was at the height of his
interest in placing his models in an elaborate studio
‘‘set,’’ frequently designed by one of his friends,
such as the interior decorators Jean-Michel Frank
or Emilio Terry. Horst recalled that the Paris studio
was equipped with about 20 large floodlights and
spotlights. He preferred to use the spotlights to
emphasize the important points of a dress.
Horst flourished in the 1930s, and photographed
prolifically in a style that embraced theatricality
and classicism simultaneously. A favorite model
was Lisa Fonnsagrives (later Lisa Penn), and it
was his work with Lisa that demonstrated a gradual
shift in approach. He eliminated props, relying on
his mastery of studio lighting. Lisa was also the
subject of some of his most successful nude studies,
which convey the graphic inventiveness power of
his compositions. This power can be seen in the
classicVoguecover of June 1, 1940. He posed the
athletic and statuesque Lisa to create letters that
spell out the magazine’s title. These stylized gestures
were based in part on his observations of dance; like
a choreographer, Horst knew the graphic and emo-
tional power of these gestures arrested at their peak.
Horst moved with the ‘‘fashionable set’’ in Paris in
the 1930s. Amongst his closest friends were Coco
Chanel, the eccentric and brilliant artist Christian
Berard, the Vicomtesse de Noailles, Gertrude Stein,
Luchino Visconti, and Janet Flanner. While he con-
sistently photographed his friends, his photographs
of Coco Chanel are particularly well known. Asked
to photograph Chanel forVogue, he found she hated
the picture. Ready to pose several days later, she
showed up with a bag of her jewelry, which was laid
out on a table so that she could choose which piece to
wear. She became absorbed in thinking about a love
affair that was ending; this was the image Horst
captured. It became her favorite image for years. He
continued to have great success with his fashion
work, which was formally inventive, ingenuously lit,
often with a slight surrealistic edge. This sense of the
strange and the dramatic is beautifully evoked in
Dali’s costumes for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo
production of Massine’s Bacchanale, executed by Cha-
nel, which appeared inVogueon October 15, 1939.
In 1962, when the ingenious Mrs. Diana Vree-
land came toVogueas editor-in-chief, she commis-
sioned Horst to do a report on the Edwardian
Consuelo Vanderbilt Marlborough Balsan and her
collection of French works of art, beginning a new
phase of Horst’s career. Horst and his companion,
the writer Valentine Lawford, set off around the
globe, reporting on the lives of the ‘‘tres chic.’’ In
this work he pioneered the use of the small format
camera and natural light for society portraiture and
fashion photography, originating ‘‘lifestyle photo-
graphy,’’ an amalgam of formal portraiture, an
unspoken narrative, and the capturing of the auraHORST, HORST P.