Horst P. Horst

The World of H.P. Horst

Horst P. Horst is regarded by photographic connoisseurs as one of the world’s pre-eminent fine-art photographers.

Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann was born in Weissenfels, Germany in 1906 and at the age of 20, began studying furniture design and carpentry under Walter Gropius at Kunstgewerbeschule in Hamburg. Three years later, Horst moved to Paris to study architecture with le Corbusier. In 1930, he met George Hoyningen-Huene, Chief Photographer for French Vogue, who advised Horst to take up photography. Horst’s first (and uncredited) pictures were published in the magazine the following year.

Horst began taking assignments for Vogue throughout Europe. His subjects including the actress/singer Gertrude Lawrence and Lee Miller, then the mistress of Man Ray. After «Genet» (the New Yorker magazine’s Paris correspondent Janet Flanner) delivered high praise for Horst’s first exhibition, Vogue offered more assignments and Horst began working steadily on still lifes and fashion shoots for both Vogue and its Conde Nast sister publication Vanity Fair. He also sat for a portrait by the painter Berard.

In 1935, Horst became the Chief Photographer for French Vogue and was now allowed to shoot the Paris Collections each year. In 1936, he took one of his best-known fashion studies, The White Sleeve, and makes the first known portrait for Vogue of famous fashion model Lisa Fonssagrives.

In 1937, Horst began a lifetime friendship with fashion designer Coco Channel. His most famous photograph, the Mainbocher Corset, was taken in 1939. The following year, he took his first nude photograph of Lisa Fonssagrives, «Lara with Harp», which was published in Vogue, and later that year, returned to New York City to live.

Horst’s famous portraits of Marlene Dietrich ran in both American and British Vogue in 1942. The following year, he became a naturalized American citizen (taking the name Horst P. Horst), and became a photographer for the U.S. Army. In 1945, he was invited to the White House to photograph President Harry Truman, and in 1948, President and Mrs. Eisenhower. In 1962, Horst photographed artist Cy Twombly.

Horst continued to take photographs until his eyesight failed in 1992. Among his most famous subjects were: Cole Porter, Katherine Hepburn, Coco Channel, The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Salvador Dali, Lucino Visconti di Modrone, Lincoln Kirsteln, Yves Saint-Laurent, the Sitwell family, Gertrude Stein, Greta Garbo, Bette Davis, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Elsa Schiaparelli, and the models Gloria Vanderbilt, Suzy Parker, Helen Bennett, Carmen and Veruschka.

Horst died 18 November 1999 at the age of 93.