Ellen von Unwerth
Elle Macpherson, New York
2014

About the Item

Price range: 9,000 - 36,000 € Limited Edition of 15 More sizes: 50x60cm/19.6x23.6 in: Edition of 15 70x100cm/27.6x39 in: Edition of 7 120x180cm/47x70.8 in: Edition of 3 Ellen von Unwerth is a photographer and director. In addition to her career as fashion photographer, filmmaker and video director, her work has been collected  in numerous books and two photo-novellas. Von Unwerth’s first book, »Snaps«, was published in 1994 followed by »Wicked« (1998), »Couples« (1999) and »Omahyra & Boyd« (2005). Her photo-novella »Revenge« was published in 2003 accompanied by exhibitions in New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Moscow. The »Fräulein« book was published in December of 2009 by Taschen and accompanied by exhibitions in New York, London, Paris and Berlin. In 2012, Ellen von Unwerth published the photo-novella »The Story of Olga« as a collector's item with Taschen publishing house. Her photographs have been widely exhibited internationally including in Archaeology of Elegance (2012), Fashioning Fiction, exhibited at MoMA/Queens in 2004, and The Model as Muse, exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2009). After a decade as a fashion model, von Unwerth brought a first-hand knowledge of the kinetic energy  of fashion photo shoots to the creation of her own photographs. Her sensual campaigns for Guess in the early 1990s launched von Unwerth's commercial career, and subsequently she has created campaigns for Victoria's Secret, Tommy Hilfiger, MAC Cosmetics, Baccarat, Moët & Chandon, Veuve Cliquot, Absolut, H&M, Lacoste, Dior, Diesel, Chanel, Miu Miu and Blumarine as well as a series of advertisements for HBO's »Sex and the City« both the series and the feature film. Ellen won several photography prizes and is exhibiting her work successfully all over the world. An ever-growing celebrity list includes some of the biggest names in fashion, art, music and design and Ellen continues to exhibit her work in prestigious Galleries worldwide.

Creator:
Ellen von Unwerth (1954, German)
Creation Year:
2014
Dimensions:
Height: 23.63 in (60 cm)Width: 15.75 in (40 cm)
Medium:
Archival Pigment
Movement & Style:
Contemporary
Period:
2010-
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Munich, DE
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU76633486191
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Ellen von Unwerth

Ellen von Unwerth is a director and photographer whose bold and erotic images of women have left an indelible mark on the visual landscape of the fashion world.

Born in Frankfurt, Germany, von Unwerth was a model in Paris for nearly a decade before turning to photography. Her 1989 images of Claudia Schiffer for a Guess jeans campaign, echoing the playfully feminine style of 1950s pinups, earned both Schiffer and von Unwerth wide attention. Over the years, her work has been featured regularly in magazines like Interview, Vanity Fair, Vogue, I-D and The Face, appearing on covers and in both editorial and commercial contexts. In 1991, she won first prize at the International Festival of Fashion Photography.

Von Unwerth’s 1995 photoshoot of Drew Barrymore for Playboy magazine is among her most popular work and, coupled with an array of album covers for such artists as Janet Jackson and Britney Spears, gave her standing as a celebrity photographer beyond the borders of the fashion world. Von Unwerth’s pictures have a distinctive look and feel, with saturated colors and dense compositions, while also, in certain cases, paying homage to great photographers of the 20th century.

The 2015 Tree of Love, Bavaria, in which a nude model reclines inside the heart-shaped hollow of an enormous decaying trunk, recalls Edward Weston’s sensuous use of the body’s geometry in his compositions. And the dramatically lit Tic Tac Toe from 2010, showing a scantily clad woman posing on a city street at night, evokes Helmut Newton’s atmospheric photograph of a model wearing Yves St. Laurent’s Le Smoking jacket, shot for French Vogue in 1975.

Von Unwerth has published several books of her photographs, including Revenge, in 2003, and Fräulein, in 2009. Those volumes have been joined by one showcasing the photos of her series “Heimat,” in which she playfully combines visual tropes of traditional Bavarian life with her signature eroticism and wit. She is represented by several dealers, including the Staley-Wise Gallery, in New York, and Galerie Trabant, in Kitzbühel, Austria.

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