Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1137964
e r i n @ e r i n h o m e . c o m 2 1 4 . 5 2 0 . 8 3 0 0 E R I N M A T H E W S e r i n h o m e . c o m THE RESIDENT EXPERT ERIN MATHEWS OBSESSIONS. DECORATION. SALIENT FACTS. 20 KARL LAGERFELD, THE BOOK A s we were sending a recent issue to print, author William Middleton texted with a bombshell. The biographer of the de Menils — Double Vision was the art book of 2018 — revealed that he has signed a contract with HarperCollins. The subject: Karl Lagerfeld, with whom Middleton T he largest and most ambitious lineup of fashion photography presented in 40 years opens this summer at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "Icons of Style: A Century of Fashion Photography" features more than 200 images snapped from the early 20th century to today by lens masters who plied their trade for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Ebony, and Essence. Making the case that work produced for magazines is worthy of being enshrined in the temples of art history, the exhibition serves up talents both known and unexpected. The former include Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon, and Irving Penn, whose protagonists are female, as well as Herb FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE LENS AT MFAH WILLIAM JESS LAIRD PaperCity, "This will not be exhaustive, unlike the de Menil book. It will not be a day-to-day chronicle. Instead, it will be an episodic look at the most important moments in Lagerfeld's life, at the world around him, and at his fierce engagement with popular culture. He was a couturier and a fashion designer, of course, so that is part of the story. But he was also intensely engaged with art and design and cinema and music and literature and history— that will be drawn out." Stay tuned: Expected publication date is 2021. More on Middleton's Lagerfeld volume at papercitymag.com. Catherine D. Anspon developed a friendship when stationed in Paris as bureau chief for Women's Wear Daily and W in the '90s. Middleton moved from Manhattan to Paris to begin research, taking his canine muse, French bulldog Hubert. Middleton told Ritts and Bruce Weber, who explore male sexuality via fashion. The under-known elements include recent sensation Tyler Mitchell (selected by Beyoncé for her September 2018 Vogue cover), as well as 1960s-era Kwame Brathwaite, who exemplified the slogan "Black is beautiful." Organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum, where the exhibition debuted last summer, the traveling retrospective gets its most robust appearance in Houston, where it is augmented by photographs by the MFAH's permanent collection, as well as local, national, and international loans. While the Getty's survey, organized by decade, stopped at 2011, the MFAH's engagement extends it through 2018. From Pictorialism to the Instagram age, the gorgeous to the transgressive, the show includes the touchstones of fashion photography, many brushing up against the art world: Edward Steichen, Man Ray, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Baron Adolph de Meyer, George Hurrell, George Hoyningen-Huene, Horst P. Horst, Cecil Beaton, Dora Maar, Sheila Metzner, Francesco Scavullo, Patrick Demarchelier, Tim Walker, Corinne Day, and Inez & Vinoodh. Subject matter aligns with our timeless fascination with celebrity: stage and screen performers such as Josephine Baker, Marlene Dietrich, and Audrey Hepburn, as well as the supermodels who became their own brand: Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, and Kate Moss. "Icons of Style: A Century of Fashion Photography," through September 22, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, mfah.org. Catherine D. Anspon Richard Avedon's Dovima with Elephants, evening dress by Dior, Cirque d'Hiver, Paris, August 1955 © THE RICHARD AVEDON FOUNDATION William Middleton