Horst P Horst Mainbocher

Horst P. Horst (born Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann) was one of the towering figures of 20th-century fashion photography.

Best known for his work with Vogue, who called him “photography’s alchemist," Horst rose to prominence in Paris in the interwar years, publishing his first work with the magazine in 1931. In the decades that followed, Horst’s experimentations with radical composition, nudity, double exposures and other avant-garde techniques would produce some of the most iconic fashion images ever, like Mainbocher Corset and Lisa with Harp (both 1939).

As the New York Times once described, “Horst tamed the avant-garde to serve fashion.” Though associated most closely with fashion photography, Horst captured portraits of many of the 20th century’s brightest luminaries, dabbling with influences as far-ranging as Surrealism and Romanticism.

“I like taking photographs because I like life,” Horst once said. “And I love photographing people best of all because most of all I love humanity.”

Find original Horst P. Horst photography today on 1stDibs.

Find a broad range of photography on 1stDibs today.

The first permanent image created by a camera — which materialized during the 1820s — is attributed to Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. The French inventor was on to something for sure. Kodak introduced roll film in the 1880s, allowing photography to become more democratic, although cameras wouldn’t be universally accessible until several decades later. 

Digital photographic techniques, software, smartphone cameras and social-networking platforms such as Instagram have made it even easier in the modern era for budding photographers to capture the world around them as well as disseminate their images far and wide. 

What might leading figures of visual art such as Andy Warhol have done with these tools at their disposal?

Today, when we aren’t looking at the digital photos that inundate us on our phones, we look to the past to celebrate the photographers who have broken rules as well as records — provocative and prolific artists like Horst P. Horst, Lillian Bassman and Helmut Newton, who altered the face of fashion and portrait photography; visionary documentary photographers such as Gordon Parks, whose best-known work was guided by social justice; and pioneers of street photography such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, who shot for revolutionary travel magazines like Holiday with the likes of globetrotting society lensman Slim Aarons.

Find photographers you may not know in Introspective and The Study — where you’ll read about Berenice Abbott, who positioned herself atop skyscrapers for the perfect shot, or “conceptual artist-adventurer” Charles Lindsay, whose work combines scientific rigor with artistic expression, or Massimo Listri, known for his epic interiors of opulent Old World libraries. Photographer Jeannette Montgomery Barron was given a Kodak camera as a child. Later, she shot on Polaroid film before buying her first 35mm camera in her teens. Barron's stunning portraits of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Warhol and other artists chronicle a crucial chapter of New York’s cultural history.

Throughout the past two centuries, photographers have used their medium to create expressive work that has resonated for generations. Shop a voluminous collection of this powerful fine photography on 1stDibs. Search by photographer to find the perfect piece for your living room wall, or spend some time with the work organized under various categories, such as landscape photography, nude photography and more.