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The Palazzo Reale Museum in Milan is dedicating a magnificent exhibi- tion to George Hoyningen-Huene, born in Saint Petersburg in 1900 and who died in Los Angeles in 1968. Recognized as an undisputed pioneer in the field of fashion photography, his elegant and discreet style had a profound impact on photographers around the world and remains highly modern. An avant- garde artist, he was able to create some of the most impressive portraits and photographic compositions of the 20th century.
Huene was a young aristocrat, polyglot and scholar, he was barely seventeen years old when he fled the Bolshevik revolution with his family, taking refuge in London and then Paris.
The only male child of Baron Von Hoyningen-Huene and an American mo- ther, he grew up at the court of Tsar Nicholas II, immersed in classical culture and surrounded by the artistic avant-garde.
In his perpetual quest for beauty, the young aesthete bathes with delight in the cultural and bohemian atmosphere of Paris. To express himself, he chooses photography and he will become «The Master of all» as Richard Avedon said. From Vogue to Harper’s Bazaar, he becomes the talent who invents light, sculpts bodies, draws a world of artifice. Every detail of his shots, every movement, every reflection is studied, thought out, reflected. His legendary photograph “Miscellaneous” (Tuffatori- 1930) shows Horst P. Horst and Lee Miller from behind. They seem to be on a jetty facing the immensity of the Mediterranean Sea. In reality, Huene has magnificently transformed his Parisian studio into an idyllic image of the Côte d’Azur.
George Hoyningen-Huene Maggy Rouff 1939 © George Hoyningen-Huene Estate Archives