Coco After Horst (Print)
Coco After Horst (Print)
Giclee print edition of 100 on archival Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper
Across two sizes:
42 x 30 cm (A3)
59 x 42 cm (A2)
I fell in love with Horst’s photography at the 2014-5 exhibition of his work at the V&A.
Horst P. Horst (born Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann) was one of the towering figures of 20th century fashion photography. Best known for his work with Vogue—who called him “photography’s alchemist”—Horst rose to prominence in Paris in the interwar years, publishing his first work with the magazine in 1931.
According to Horst: “For years Coco Chanel had firmly refused to allow her dresses to be photographed, let alone herself, for Vogue. But one day in 1937, to the frank astonishment of Vogue’s Paris office, she sent word that she would consent to be photographed – on one condition: that I should be the photographer.”
Although the shoot was in Horst’s words, “a flop,” a second private sitting resulted in a profile portrait that remained Chanel’s favorite throughout her life. Horst said about the second session: “This time she wasn’t preoccupied with the photograph; she was thinking about a love affair with Iribe that was ending. You can see that she’s not paying attention to anything here – she’s dreaming and thinking. She loved these pictures and ordered hundreds…
In the decades that followed, Horst’s experimentations with radical composition, nudity, double exposures, and other avant-garde techniques would produce some of the most iconic fashion images ever.