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Horst P. Horst: Mainbocher Corset, 1939
In August 1939, on the eve of the Second World War, Horst P. Horst took his famous photograph of the Mainbocher Corset in the Paris Vogue studios on the Champs-Elysees. The picture, which marked the end of his work for some time, later became his most cited fashion photograph
There’s no question: it’s a “great silent picture,” to borrow the expression of the media scholar Norbert Bolz - a picture that literally lends form and, by means of photography, permanence to the beautiful phantasm of fashion. Many consider the photograph to be Horst P. Horst’s best work an opinion that the photographer himself would probably agree with, for otherwise, how is one to explain that he chose the motif almost as a matter of course for the cover of his autobiography Horst - His Work and His World? Timeless beauty, balance, an interplay of modesty and charm, eros and humility, provocation and subtle elegance are simultaneously at play in the photograph, not to mention the flattering light and dramatic shadows. After all, wasn’t the photographer called a master of dramatic lighting?
Horst P. Horst photographed his Mainbocher Corset in the studios of the Paris Vogue in 1939. Only a few years earlier, Martin Munkacsi had let a model in light summer clothing and bathing shoes run along the dunes of a beach - freedom, adventure, summertime, sun, air, movement, sporty femininity - all caught by a photographic technique schooled in photojournalism. Munkacsi’s picture, first published in the December 1935 issue of Harper’s Bazaar, caused a sensation. Munkacsi photographed with a Leica, and the photographer moved to keep up with the moving object. Horst in contrast favored the large camera mounted on a stand and a focusing screen that allowed him to calculate his photograph down to the last detail. In other words, Horst sought to produce elegance as the outgrowth of intuition and hard work. How long did he pull at the bands, turn and twirl them, until they arrived at the right balance on an imaginary scale between insignificance and the determining factor in the picture! Roland Barthes, the great French philosopher, structuralist, and prognosticator of photography, might well have discovered his ‘punctum’ precisely here, that is, the apparently insignificant detail of a photograph that gives the picture its fascination and charm, and ultimately what awakens our interest. Horst P. Horst would probably have described the effect differently. Occasionally he spoke of “a little mess” that he carefully incorporated into his pictures.
Horst had photographed his famous study on the very eve of the coming catastrophe. “It was the last photograph I took in Paris before the war”, he later recalled, “I left the studio at 4:00 a.m., went back to the house, picked up my bags and caught the 7.00 a.m. train to Le Havre to board the Normandie. We all felt that war was coming. Too much armament, too much talk. And you knew that whatever happened, life would be completely different after. I had found a family in Paris, and a way of life. The clothes, the books, the apartment, everything left behind. I had left Germany, Heune had left Russia, and now we experienced the same kind of loss all over again. This photograph is peculiar - for me, it is the essence of that moment. While I was taking it, I was thinking of all that I was leaving behind.”
onlyoldphotography:
Horst P. Horst: Mainbocher Corset, 1939
In August 1939, on the eve of the Second World War, Horst P. Horst took his famous photograph of the Mainbocher Corset in the Paris Vogue studios on the Champs-Elysees. The picture, which marked the end of his work for some time, later became his most cited fashion photograph
There’s no question: it’s a “great silent picture,” to borrow the expression of the media scholar Norbert Bolz - a picture that literally lends form and, by means of photography, permanence to the beautiful phantasm of fashion. Many consider the photograph to be Horst P. Horst’s best work an opinion that the photographer himself would probably agree with, for otherwise, how is one to explain that he chose the motif almost as a matter of course for the cover of his autobiography Horst - His Work and His World? Timeless beauty, balance, an interplay of modesty and charm, eros and humility, provocation and subtle elegance are simultaneously at play in the photograph, not to mention the flattering light and dramatic shadows. After all, wasn’t the photographer called a master of dramatic lighting?
Horst P. Horst photographed his Mainbocher Corset in the studios of the Paris Vogue in 1939. Only a few years earlier, Martin Munkacsi had let a model in light summer clothing and bathing shoes run along the dunes of a beach - freedom, adventure, summertime, sun, air, movement, sporty femininity - all caught by a photographic technique schooled in photojournalism. Munkacsi’s picture, first published in the December 1935 issue of Harper’s Bazaar, caused a sensation. Munkacsi photographed with a Leica, and the photographer moved to keep up with the moving object. Horst in contrast favored the large camera mounted on a stand and a focusing screen that allowed him to calculate his photograph down to the last detail. In other words, Horst sought to produce elegance as the outgrowth of intuition and hard work. How long did he pull at the bands, turn and twirl them, until they arrived at the right balance on an imaginary scale between insignificance and the determining factor in the picture! Roland Barthes, the great French philosopher, structuralist, and prognosticator of photography, might well have discovered his ‘punctum’ precisely here, that is, the apparently insignificant detail of a photograph that gives the picture its fascination and charm, and ultimately what awakens our interest. Horst P. Horst would probably have described the effect differently. Occasionally he spoke of “a little mess” that he carefully incorporated into his pictures.
Horst had photographed his famous study on the very eve of the coming catastrophe. “It was the last photograph I took in Paris before the war”, he later recalled, “I left the studio at 4:00 a.m., went back to the house, picked up my bags and caught the 7.00 a.m. train to Le Havre to board the Normandie. We all felt that war was coming. Too much armament, too much talk. And you knew that whatever happened, life would be completely different after. I had found a family in Paris, and a way of life. The clothes, the books, the apartment, everything left behind. I had left Germany, Heune had left Russia, and now we experienced the same kind of loss all over again. This photograph is peculiar - for me, it is the essence of that moment. While I was taking it, I was thinking of all that I was leaving behind.”
