Liz Markus

Markus Klinko is an award-winning fashion and pop culture photographer and film director who is renowned all over the world. The Swiss-born artist has worked with a wealth of legendary celebrities in music, film and fashion, and has created poignant and striking images that capture the essence of popular culture of the 2000s. 

Klinko was initially interested in music. He was a classically trained harpist and studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. Klinko was a featured solo performer with orchestras around the world, signed an exclusive recording contract with EMI Classics and was awarded the Grand Prix de Disque for his recording of French harp music with members of the orchestra of the Paris Opera Bastille. 

In 1994, Klinko suffered a hand injury and chose to retire from recording and performing. Instead, he decided to take up fashion photography. He’d made friends in the industry over the years and his talent earned him assignments with the likes of the London Sunday Times and Interview magazine and other French and British fashion magazines. Klinko eventually met revered British rock star David Bowie because he was shooting Bowie’s wife — supermodel, entrepreneur and actress Iman.

In 2001, the photographer shot the cover of the book I Am Iman — Iman's book, which features contributions by David Bailey, Helmut Newton and others — and Bowie commissioned Klinko to photograph him for the cover of the singer’s 2002 album Heathen. Klinko and Bowie worked together again for the cover of GQ, and a 2001-era collection of never-before-seen images of the musician that Klinko shot called “Bowie Unseen” has garnered international critical acclaim.

Collaborating with digital post-production artist and photo editor Indrani, Klinko has created some of the most iconic album covers of the 21st century and has worked with American superstars Beyoncé, Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. Over the years, the photographer has worked for Vogue, Vanity Fair, Hugo Boss, L’Oréal Paris and many more. A campaign he shot for children with AIDS raised over one million dollars in merely three days. The book Icons: The Celebrity Exposures of Markus and Indrani was published in 2012.

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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.