Louise Dahl-Wolfe: A Style of Her Own

Dull exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum looking at the life and work of the fashion photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe.

I liked her early, non-fashion work, done in the Depression in Tennessee, including some lovely still lives such as an aubergine in a bowl. She then moved to New York and became a staff photographer for Harper’s Bazaar who she worked for for 22 years producing 86 covers.

She did a lot of portrait work to accompany articles and the pictures were shown with good biographies of the sitters. There were lovely pictures of Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich and Ginger Rogers. She also took the photograph of the 17 year old model Lauren Bacall which launched her film career.

She was known for using natural light in real surroundings for her fashion work. She also liked to control the whole process from design, choosing the locations though to the final four-colour printing of the magazine. She was a pioneer in the use of colour and the development of fashion photography.

The pictures however were rather dully displayed. This is such a fun space that it would have been nice to show the work in a more innovative way. There were a lot of pictures displayed in quite a linear way. It would have been nice to break it up a bit more with examples of the type of clothes shown.

Closed on 21 January 2018

 

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