Artist Research

George Hurrell

George Edward Hurrell was born on June 1, 1904 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  His father, Edward, was born there too, of English and Irish parents.  His paternal grandfather had come from Essex, England where the family had been successful shoe manufacturers for several centuries.  Hurrell’s mother, Anna Mary Eble was born in Germany, but had moved with her family to Cincinatti as a child.

Hurrell is credited with creating the standard for the idealized Hollywood glamour portrait. Always an innovator, he invented the boom light and developed several—now standard—lighting techniques. Hurrell’s signature use of precision lighting, spotlights, shadows, and hand-retouching on the negatives produced romantic portraits that became his trademark style and the definition of glamour for the movie industry. This influential look became known as “Hurrell style.”

Classically trained as a painter, Hurrell employed fine art techniques in his compositions. Beginning in 1930, Hurrell worked as a portrait photographer for most of the major Hollywood motion picture studios, first with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. While most of the country suffered during the Great Depression in the 1930s, the movie industry thrived. During this time especially, Hurrell’s photographs did more than just promote a film or a celebrity; for many, the glamour, romance, and drama of these photos provided a momentary mental escape from difficult times.

Erwin Blumenfeld

Erwin Blumenfeld's early career began in an older photographic age. Born in Germany in 1897 his business took off in the 30s, where he photographed customers at his leather goods shop in Amsterdam. From the start he was very much influenced by the idea of photography as art, valuing sincerity above commercial considerations. He saw himself not as a photojournalist, but as someone who explored how best to show a fashionable object without documenting it.

From these beginnings he moved to experimentation with colours (Red on Red, 1954), darkroom techniques and the use of mirrors and light, most famously in his 1952 portrait of Audrey Hepburn. 

Having fled Nazi Germany for America in 1941, by the end of the 1940s he was the highest paid photographer in the world, working for such famous fashion magazines as American Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Life, Look and Cosmopolitan.

Richard Avedon

By capturing American ideals of celebrity, fashion, and beauty in the 20th and early 21st centuries, Richard Avedon helped to establish photography as a contemporary art form. Avedon’s distinct style of portrait photography is nothing short of iconic. While the portraiture of his contemporaries focused on single moments or composed formal images, his stark lighting and minimalist white backdrops drew the viewer to the intimate, emotive power of the subject’s expression. Between 1945 and 1965, he worked as a fashion photographer, revolutionizing the craft even as he honed his aesthetic. His work appeared in magazines from Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue to Life and Look. Later, he moved into journalism and the art world. Avedon’s subjects included pop icons, models, musicians, writers, artists, workers, political activists, soldiers, Vietnam War victims, politicians, and his family.

Patrick Demarchelier

Patrick Demarchelier is a master photographer whose images capture an often surprising and spontaneous vitality in even the most powerful icons of beauty and culture. Perhaps his best-known photographs are his portraits of Diana, taken with her sons, which helped to establish her as ‘the people’s Princess.’

For more than three decades, Demarchelier’s images have helped define nearly every major fashion magazine including American, British and French Vogue. He has also created advertising images for clients including Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Calvin Klein, Gianfranco Ferré, Armani, Max Mara, Moschino, L’Oréal, Pirelli and Tiffany.

Mario Testino

Mario Testino OBE is widely regarded as one of the most influential fashion and portrait photographers of our times. His photographs have been published internationally in magazines such as Vogue, V Magazine and Vanity Fair. He has contributed to the success of leading fashion and beauty houses, creating emblematic images for brands from Gucci, Burberry, Versace and Michael Kors to Chanel, Estée Lauder and Lancôme.

Alongside his 35-year practice as a photographer, Testino has realised a body of work as a creative director, guest editor, museum founder, art collector/collaborator and entrepreneur. In 2007, at the request of his clients to provide full creative direction services, he formed MARIOTESTINO+ which today is a growing team of individuals who support Testino to realise the breadth of his creative output.

Rankin

Rankin made his name in publishing, founding the seminal monthly magazine Dazed & Confused with Jefferson Hack in 1992. It provided a platform for innovation for emerging stylists, designers, photographers and writers. The magazine went on to forge a distinctive mark in the arts and publishing spheres, and developed a cult status forming and moulding trends, and bringing some of the brightest lights in fashion to the foreground.

Rankin has created landmark editorial and advertising campaigns. His body of work features some of the most celebrated publications, biggest brands and pioneering charities, including Nike, Swatch, Dove, Pantene, Diageo, Women’s Aid, and Breakthrough Breast Cancer. He has shot covers for Elle, German Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone and Wonderland. His work has always endeavoured to question social norms and ideas of beauty and, in late 2000, Rankin published the heteroclite quarterly Rank, an experimental anti-fashion magazine celebrating the unconventional.

David Bailey

To capture the pure essence and beauty of life, to tell a story, or to simply communicate and idea is the art of photography. It has been David's natural talent and ability as a photographer to visually communicate that has garnered him the respect and recognition of his peers.

Sometimes a small gift or thoughtful gesture can shape a person's entire life. It was just such a moment that led David to the pursuit of his dream. As with most siblings, David wanted to emulate his brother. He longed to follow in his brother's artistic footsteps but in his own creative direction. Sensing this untapped talent, his brother gave him his first camera, a 35mm Voigtlander and from there an inspiration grew.

In 1994, David introduced David Bailey Photography, which has grown to represent some of the most highly recognized corporate clients in the US. With over 30 years of experience, David has artistically captured the spirit of each image with a genuine depth of feeling and emotion.

His award-winning work is derrived from client assignments and from self-assigned projects that he has included in his portfolio of stock photography. Not only has he traveled this country finding the moment waiting to be forever remembered, his work has taken him on photographic explorations of cultures around the world.