Antonia Wilson praises Patterns From Nature, a new collection of “largely unseen, kaleidoscopic and abstract works” by the 20th-century photographer Horst P. Horst:
The book draws from the original 1946 publication of the same name, along with presenting a larger selection of unpublished images from the photographer’s archive. The series is distinctly set apart from the high glamour that his is predominantly known for, as a revered figure of the fashion industry, who worked for Vogue and House & Garden for sixty years, documenting couture, celebrities and interiors. …
The original book presented a series of straight, close-up, black-and-white shots of botanical specimens, including plants, shells, and minerals, naturally lit and often experimental in composition … “For the most part, the pictures found here [are] of common objects daily passing before our eyes. Nothing has been added to enhance them. They are photographed without artificial arrangements and special effects, in their own setting and in their paper light. Direct or diffused sunlight coming from above caresses their surface and in some instances dew or rain brings relief into their fine texture,” Horst writes.
Meanwhile, Ben Pentreath revisits a different side of Horst’s work, reviewing his 1965 volume, Vogue’s Book of Houses, Gardens, People:
Horst’s subjects are at ease with him and he with them. Through his lens, we see the rich, powerful or artistic – “the beautiful people” as [Vogue editor Diana] Vreeland called them – relaxing in their own spaces, smiling, apparently unaware at all of the immortality that Horst’s all-seeing camera was to bestow upon them, and equally appear unaware of their often staggering wealth and privilege. …
Many of Horst’s photographs are shot through softly focused foreground flowers, or candlesticks, silver or glass, as if to impart a mood of artlessness. We just happen to be here, looking in at this world, Horst seems to say: enjoy it while it lasts. Perhaps it is this sense of fragility that makes Houses, Gardens, People so poignant and enduring. There is the quality of the hastily taken image that belies the extent to which Horst composed his interior photographs, often rearranging furniture and entire rooms. Do we find here something of the mood of the voyeur of our own age, artist Alison Jackson, who goes to extraordinary lengths, with the help of celebrity lookalikes, to create views that look utterly casual? Maybe – but while Jackson’s subjects are fake, Horst’s are real.
(Image usage courtesy Merrell Publishers of London & New York)
The Dish 