Horst P. Horst

Horst P. Horst (born Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann; August 14, 1906 – November 18, 1999) was a German-American fashion photographer.

Early life The younger of the sons, Horst was born in Weissenfels an der Saale, Germany, to Klara (Schönbrodt) and Max Bohrmann. His father was a successful merchant. In his teens, he met dancer Evan Weidemann at the home of his aunt, and this aroused his interest in avant-garde art. In the late 1920s, Horst studied at Hamburg Kunstgewerbeschule, leaving there in 1930 to go to Paris to study under the architect Le Corbusier.

Youth While in Paris, Horst befriended many people in the art community and visited many galleries. In 1930 he met Vogue photographer Baron George Hoyningen-Huene, a half-Baltic, half-American nobleman, and became his photographic assistant, occasional model, and lover.

His first exhibition took place at La Plume d'Or in Paris in 1932. It was reviewed by Janet Flanner in The New Yorker, and this review, which appeared after the exhibition ended, made Horst instantly prominent. Horst made a portrait of Bette Davis the same year, the first in a series of public figures he would photograph during his career. Within two years, he had photographed Noël Coward, Yvonne Printemps, Lisa Fonssagrives, Count Luchino Visconti di Madrone, Duke Fulco di Verdura, Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, Princess Natalia Pavlovna Paley, Daisy Fellowes, Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, Cole Porter, Elsa Schiaparelli, Eve Curie, and others.

Horst rented an apartment in New York City in 1937, and while residing there met Coco Chanel, whom Horst called "the queen of the whole thing". He would photograph her fashions for three decades.

He met Valentine Lawford, British diplomat in 1938, and they lived together until Lawford's death in 1991. Horst adopted a son, Richard J. Horst, whom they raised together.

In 1941, Horst applied for United States citizenship. In 1942, he passed an Army physical, and joined the Army on July 2, 1943. On October 21, he received his United States citizenship as Horst P. Horst. He became an Army photographer,

Later life In the 1960s, encouraged by Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, Horst began a series of photos illustrating the lifestyle of international high society which included Consuelo Vanderbilt, Marella Agnelli, Gloria Guinness, Baroness Pauline de Rothschild and Baron Philippe de Rothschild, Helen of Greece and Denmark, Baroness Geoffroy de Waldner, Princess Tatiana of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, Lee Radziwill, Duke of Windsor and Duchess of Windsor, Peregrine Eliot, 10th Earl of St Germans and Lady Jacquetta Eliot, Countess of St Germans, Antenor Patiño, Annette Reed, Oscar de la Renta and Françoise de Langlade, Desmond Guinness and Princess Henriette Marie-Gabrielle von Urach, Andy Warhol, Nancy Lancaster, Yves Saint Laurent, Doris Duke, Emilio Pucci, Cy Twombly, Billy Baldwin, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Amanda Burden, Paloma Picasso and Comtesse Jacqueline de Ribes. The articles were written by the photographer's longtime companion, Valentine Lawford, a former English diplomat. From this point until nearly the time of his death, Horst spent most of his time traveling and taking photographs. In the mid-1970s, he began working for House & Garden magazine as well as for Vogue.

Horst's last photograph for British Vogue was in 1991 with Princess Michael of Kent, shown against a background of tapestry and wearing a tiara belonging to her mother-in-law, Princess Marina, whom he had photographed in 1934.

Publications Books featuring Horst's photography: 1944 Horst Photographs of a Decade, J.J. Augustin 1946 Patterns from Nature - a collection of plant still lifes, J.J. Augustin 1968 Vogue's Book of Houses, Gardens, People, Viking Press 1984 Horst, His Work and His World, Alfred A. Knopf 1984 Horst Return Engagement: Faces to Remember, Then and Now, Crown Publishers 1971 Salute to the Thirties (A Studio Book) 1991 Horst - Sixty Years of Photography, Schirmer/Mosel 1992 Form/ Horst, Twin Palms 1993 Horst: Interiors, Little, Brown and Co 1997 Horst P Horst: Magician of Lights 2001 Horst Portraits : 60 Years of Style, National Portrait Gallery, London 2006 Platinum, Jefferies Cowan 2014 "Horst: Photographer of Style", Victoria & Albert Museum, London Spezial Fotografie: Portfolio No. 24