‘The essential function of a photograph is to be reproduced in a magazine.’ Alexander Liberman, art director, Vogue.
Fashion photography from the archives of the Condé Nast publications – including Vogue and Glamour magazines- is on show at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh from the 15th of June until the 8th of September as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival.
“I was looking at strong, powerful works which announced the mature work of these photographers,” said exhibition curator Nathalie Herschdorfer. “There is a Helmut Newton style, a David Bailey style, a Peter Lindberg style, a Miles Aldridge style. The works in the show announce the best of these styles. This is a walk through the 20th Century because looking at fashion images shows also the way that the society has changed and evolved. Each image tells a story and invites us to engage with it, but it also encapsulates something of the tastes, the aspirations and the dreams of its time.”
Coming Into Fashion, by Nathalie Herschdorfer – Thames and Hudson
“Mr Condé Nast understood that a powerful cover would bring him more readers,” said Herschdorfer. “The first Vogue covers are works of art. In the early Twenties, he realised what the photographic medium could bring to his magazines. He was a man of his time and was looking ahead. He wanted to work with people who were talented artists and not necessarily good practicians. The vision of the photographer was recognised as a value, then the photographer was asked to adapt it to the magazine’s needs.”
Condé Nast initially hired the Baron Adolf de Meyer, Edward Steichen, Irving Penn and William Klein in the early 1900s, his publications would then go on to work with the likes of Horst P. Horst, Man Ray, Lee Miller, David Bailey, Cecil Beaton, Norman Parkinson, Albert Watson, Erwin Blumenfeld, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, Deborah Turbeville, Guy Bourdin, Mario Testino, Corinne Day and Sølve Sundsbø.