Ellen von Unwerth Fräulein

About the Item

They're not your girls next door. Fashion and fetish in a female fantasyland. Collector’s edition, limited to 1,500 numbered copies, each signed by the photographer. Ellen von Unwerth was a supermodel before the term was invented, so she knows a thing or two about photographing beautiful women. Now one of the world’s most original and successful fashion photographers, she pays homage to the world‘s most delectable females in Fräulein. This celebration of our era’s sexiest female icons includes Claudia Schiffer, Kate Moss, Vanessa Paradis, Britney Spears, Eva Mendes, Lindsay Lohan, Dita von Teese, Adriana Lima, Carla Bruni, Eva Green, Christina Aguilera, Monica Bellucci and dozens more. An instant collector‘s item: Switching effortlessly between color and immaculate black and white, von Unwerth‘s photography revels in sexual intrigue, femininity, romance, fetishism, kitsch humor, decadence and sheer joie de vivre. Whether nude or in lingerie and a dazzling smile, her subjects are never objectified. Some flaunt personal fantasies; others are guarded, suggesting that we have stumbled into a secret world. Fashion and fantasy were never so enchantingly combined. These images were shot over the last 15 years and many are previously unpublished. Also available in Art Editions A and B, each with one of two photographic prints by Ellen von Unwerth. The photographer: Ellen von Unwerth worked as a top fashion model for 10 years, before taking up the camera and becoming one of the world's most in-demand fashion photographers. Her editorial work has featured in countless magazines, including Vogue, Interview, Vanity Fair and i-D, while her major advertising campaigns include Victoria's Secret, Banana Republic, Guess, Diesel, and Chanel. In 1991 she was awarded first prize at the International Festival of Fashion Photography, and her work was featured in Archaeology of Elegance (2002) and Fashioning Fiction at MoMA/Queens (2004). Her many individual exhibitions include a one woman show at the Hamilton Gallery in London, and her photo-novella Revenge (2003) was accompanied by exhibitions in New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Moscow and Beijing. The author: Ingrid Sischy is a contributing editor for vanity fair. A former staff writer, photography and fashion critic at The New Yorker, she was editor in chief of Interview, 1989-2008. She has profiled Keith Haring, David Hockney, Jeff Koons, Nicole Kidman, and Madonna, among many others.

Creator:

Ellen von Unwerth (Photographer),Ingrid Sischy (Author)

Dimensions:

Height: 17.3 in (43.95 cm)Width: 12 in (30.48 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)

Materials and Techniques:

Other

Place of Origin:

Italy

Period:

21st Century

Date of Manufacture:

2009

Condition:

Seller Location:

Los Angeles, CA

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU9681766595

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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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