Horst P. Horst (1906-1999)

MALE NUDE, 1952. Silver gelatin print, printed later, image size 480 x 334mm, sheet size 505 x 405mm, signed by the photographer in pencil on verso.

In 1931, Horst met Mehemed Fehmy Agha, art director of American Vogue, who encouraged him to begin work as a fashion photographer at French Vogue. Of Horst's precise planning and attention to the human form, Agha said, "Horst takes the inert clay of human flesh and models it into the decorative shapes of his own devising. Every gesture of his models is planned, every line controlled and coordinated to the whole of the picture. Some gestures look natural and careless, because carefully rehearsed; the others, like Voltaire’s god, were invented by the artist because they did not exist." (from the Victoria & Albert Museum's 2014-2015 exhibition, Horst: Photographer of Style.)