This autumn the V&A will present the definitive retrospective of the work of Horst P. Horst (1906-99), one of the 20th century’s master photographers. In a career that spanned six decades, Horst photographed the exquisite creations of couturiers such as Chanel, Schiaparelli and Vionnet in 1930s Paris, and helped to launch the careers of many models. In New York a decade later, he experimented with early colour techniques and his meticulously composed, artfully lit images leapt from the magazine page.
This is the biggest ever UK retrospective of Horst's photography and will explore a career that lasted 60 years and one which took in fashion, art, reportage, design and high society. The show will include some of his most famous photographs for Vogue.
The exhibition will display more than 250 of Horst’s best known photographs alongside unpublished and rarely exhibited vintage prints, conveying the diversity of his output, from surreal still lifes to portraits of Hollywood stars, nudes and nature studies to documentary pictures of the Middle East. It will examine his creative process through the inclusion of original contact sheets, sketches and archive film footage.
Horst: Photographer of Style
6 September 2014 – 4 January 2015
Image: Salvador Dalí’s costumes for Leonid Massine's ballet Bacchanale, 1939. © Condé Nast/Horst Estate
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