100 Years Of Fashion Photography To Go On Show In LA

The changing face of fashion photography will be on display in an upcoming show at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles that will feature the work of more than 80 photographers over 100 years.

Announced last week, "Icons of Style" will include more than 160 photographs, along wth costumes, illustrations, magazine covers, videos and advertisements, with work by Richard Avedon, Guy Bourdin, Inez & Vinoodh, Peter Lindbergh, Man Ray, Helmut Newton, Irving Penn and Herb Ritts, among many others.

Through this selection of works, the museum aims to illuminate the aesthetic and technological changes in the field over the course of a century.

The exhibition is said to be the most comprehensive exploration yet undertaken of fashion photography, a phenomenon that has not always had a place in museums.

"Once overlooked by collectors and museums because of its commercial origins, fashion photography is now recognized as having produced some of the most creative work of the twentieth century...," explains Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. "Museums, however, have been slow to embrace this genre. The time seems ripe to present a sweeping overview of the finest examples of fashion photography produced over the past century."

The exhibition will open with a key moment in 1911, when French publisher Lucien Vogel challenged photographer Edward Steichen to create fashion photographs that were artistic rather than simply realistic.

Over the following decade, photographs reveal changes in women's fashion, from corseted styles to the looser fitting designs exemplified by Coco Chanel; later, the influence of political and economic changes on the fashion industry is seen in photographs produced during the Great Depression and World War II.

Works from the 1950s represent the Golden Age of fashion photography, when Richard Avedon and Irving Penn used visually arresting approaches to depict the elegant gowns of Balenciaga and Dior. The youth culture and sexual revolution are seen in works from the 1960s and '70s, followed by the 1980s rise of corporate power dressing and the 1990s turn toward "heroin chic."

Brand new possibilities for fashion photography will be examined in the exhibition's final stages, with focuses on Instagram and the rise of street-style blogs such as The Sartorialist.

"Icons of Style: A Century of Fashion Photography, 1911-2011" will be on view June 26 to from October 21 at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.