Horst: Photographer in style

Very elegant exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the life and work of the photographer Horst.

The first section looked at Horst’s fashion work in the early 20th century during the time he was one of Vogue’s first star photographers. It was great that these were shown with a selection of outfits by the same designers from the museum’s own collections. It gave the slightly static pictures a lovely life and vibrancy.

The next section looked at his surrealist work from early pieces with Dali and working with Schiaparelli’s designs through to surreal still lives he did in 1989. I loved “Hands, hands, hands” from 1941, a chain of black and white hands. The show also included the untouched version of his Mainbocher corset shot as well as the iconic finished version.

Next the show looked at his portraits of movie stars and his travel work taken while staying with his partner, Valentine Lawford, the political counsellor at the British Embassy in Tehran. I loved his pictures of Assyrian archaeology particularly a tunnel of arches.

There was a lovely display to mark the advent of colour in his work with a big table of Vague covers by his with large reproductions of them around the walls. Also a section on his work photographing celebrity houses.

The last section had modern reproductions with a technique using platinum which included some amazing male nudes from the 1950s.

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