International Center of Photography Focuses on Yves Saint Laurent and Photography
Jean-Claude Sauer, Cocktail dresses known as “Homage to Pop Art”, Fall/Winter1966 haute couture collection. Published in LIFE magazine, September 1966
The International Center of Photography in New York will open its Yves Saint Laurent and Photography exhibition tomorrow exploring how the photographic image became central to the making of the house of Yves Saint Laurent over four decades.
The exhibition will bring together photographs by Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Guy Bourdin, Robert Doisneau, Horst P. Horst, William Klein, Annie Leibovitz, Steven Meisel, Duane Michals, Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, David Seidner, and Andy Warhol alongside archival materials to show how photography was used not just for promotion, but as a vital element in shaping identity, influence and cultural discourse.
Yves Saint Laurent himself maintained an active relationship with many photographers, viewing the medium as a way to take risks in the fashioning of his identity and in pushing the boundaries of what was deemed acceptable or relevant, specifically with regard to gender roles and expectations.
The first section of the exhibition brings together portraits and fashion photographs chronologically tracing the evolution of Yves Saint Laurent’s creations and emblematic portraits of the couturier. Highlights include:
- the striking portrait of Yves Saint Laurent by Irving Penn in 1957
- experimental images by William Klein in 1962
- photographs by Bettina Rheims backstage at runway shows in the 1980s
The second section retraces these same years through the presentation of more than 200 objects from the archives of the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris including contact sheets, advertising notebooks and campaign catalogues, press clippings, magazines and personal photographs. These reveal the central role that photography played in the life of the couturier and in the history of his fashion house.
"Yves Saint Laurent understood both the documentary power of photography as a tool to preserve something for eternity that might otherwise be ephemeral and its ability to elevate that which it documented," said a spokesperson for the exhibition. "The inclusion of printed matter in Yves Saint Laurent and Photography demonstrates how these images circulated and were presented to the public in varied contexts, while also showing how fashion photography inspired the fashion designer."
The exhibition runs through September 28.
