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13/1/2010

Fernand Fonssagrives and Kishin Shinoyama

Michael Hoppen, London

Fernand Fonssagrives - Solo show

The Michael Hoppen gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition of work by one of America’s foremost fashion photographers Fernand Fonssagrives.

Once the highest paid photographers in the world, he was ambivalent about the acclaim he received in his chosen field, preferring to remain anonymous. Little was written about him, even at the peak of his success. He was linked to the early ‘Design Laboratory’ classes of Alexey Brodovitch, and was a key member of the close knit group of photographers now celebrated as ‘The New York School.

His most memorable work traces the unique partnership he had with his first wife, legendary model Lisa Fonssagrives, a former dancer who went on to marry Irving Penn. A major influence and inspiration to both men, Lisa was responsible for Fonssagrives picking up a camera – she gave him a Rollieflex after his own dance career ended due to a diving injury; “It became,” he said, “part of my body”.

Born in 1910 in France to a sculptor father and a musician mother, Fonssagrives was encouraged to do the things he most loved: science, art, sports, gymnastics and dance. He moved to America aged 18 to continue his studies, and returned to Europe at 21 for military service. After joining a German dance company, he met the young Swedish dancer Lisa Bergstrom who became his dance partner and then his wife.

Fernand and Lisa spent two years in Europe, supporting themselves by selling his photographs of her to over 50 European publications. Lisa had an uninhibited and carefree style, and her look was much sought after by fashion editors and stylists in the 1940s. She and Fonssagrives helped to define the natural, effortless beauty that has become the mainstay of fashion photography as we now know it. Lisa’s elegant dancers’ figure and enigmatic look were a constant inspiration to Fonssagrives whether he photographed her dancing in the open air, or experimentally draped in shadows to define the contours of her naked body. When World War II forced them to return to New York, they were catapulted into separate but highly successful careers.

Unfortunately, their careers diverged and the marriage ended in 1950; Lisa was the epitome of fashion, a form of photography Fonssagrives began to resent as too commercial, and which limited to his creative freedom. After becoming disillusioned with advertising photography, he moved to Spain, taught himself to sculpt, and regained his creative independence. Lisa married Irving Penn, and her collaboration with him is an acknowledged landmark in the maturity of fashion photography.

Fernand Fonssagrives died in Little Rock, Arkansas in 2003. . This exhibition of little –seen prints pay tribute to a talent not often shown to the public.

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Kishin Shinoyama - Nude

Still hard at work well into his late 70s, Japanese photographer Kishin Shinoyama’s images have lost none of the potency that would make his 1960’s nude studies so revered and sensationalized in equal measure. Michael Hoppen Contemporary is pleased to announce the first exhibition of his work in the UK, which will focus on his most iconic series- Birth, Twin, Death Valley, Brown Lilly and Phantom, as well as studies of a dancer, also from the 1960s.

Shinoyama was born in Tokyo in 1940 and at the age of three underwent ordination rites to become a Buddhist priest. By the age of 10 he was given his first camera and was proficient and keen enough to establish his own working darkroom. He studied photography at Nihon University, Tokyo, also working as a freelance photographer for the Light Publicity Company in the early 1960s. He worked in editorial and fast became one of the youngest and most well thought of in his field- photographing everything from pearls to jet planes with a fresh, dynamic sense of imagery and symbolism.

After leaving Light Publicity in 1968 to freelance, his creative energy and unique character and appearance made him a mass media star. His photographs of the celebrities of the day, including female impersonator Akihiro Mruyama and his nude studies created a sensation.

In October 1968, his one man exhibition ‘Birth’ – photographs taken on location on Tokunoshima in Southern Japan- showed the beginnings of the psychedelic and daring nature of his work, with that sense of nostalgia linked with the future that is so evocative of the late 1960s.

This exhibition is a chance to see vintage prints and more recent reexplorations of earlier solarization techniques by an artist who was at the forefront of challenges to preconceived ideas of beauty and the nude.

In 1970, his exhibition NUDE- Kishin Shinoyama Exhibition, which focused around his work in Death Valley drew great attention and praise for its challenging images of the female form, and the fame of ‘Shinoyama of the Nudes’ was assured. The book ‘Nude’ has now become highly valuable and collectable, as have other publications of his work.

Image: Contours 1954-1958
© Estate of Fernand Fonssagrives courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery
Silver gelatin print 20 x 24 inches

Opening Jan. 14th

Michael Hoppen Contemporary
3 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TD
Tues-Fri 12noon - 6 pm . Sat 10:30am - 5pm
free admission

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