As Head of Photography at Vogue Paris in the early 20th century, George Hoyningen-Huene's images helped to define the magazine — and an era.
As part of the launch for Vogue Scandinavia in August, Sonia Westman hosted an exclusive party in Djurgården. Attended by pioneers of the art and fashion industries, the party was a feast for the senses, but a series of 12 elegant photographs in particular captivated the guests. The dozen prints were of images captured by the late George Hoyningen-Huene, who — having become Head of Photography at Vogue Paris in 1925 — helped shape the identity of the then fledgling fashion publication.
As Tommy and Åsa Rönngren of the George Hoyningen-Huene Estate Archives, who the images were on loan from, put it, "His links with Vogue are timeless." Intriguingly, there's also a Scandinavian connection to Hoyningen-Huene's story: he had fled the Russian Revolution through Stockholm over a century ago.
Related: A first look at 'Women’s Tales,' a Danish photo exhibition starring Scandinavian supermodels
As leading patrons of the arts in Stockholm, Tommy and Åsa Rönngren have earned a reputation for creative excellence. Together they are devoted to supporting photography, design and architecture internationally. In 2020, after a year of negotiations, they acquired the iconic George Hoyningen-Huene Estate Archives and brought them back to Stockholm. “We appreciate his elegance as a fashion photographer and have observed his resonance with contemporary audiences,” says Tommy, whose role as a partner at the Fotografiska Museum of Photography has sparked speculation over a more public show for the Estate Archives. ‘‘We have begun discussions on a major exhibition with Fotografiska, but have not made any decisions,” he says.
When Hoyningen-Huene arrived at Vogue in the 1920s, the publication had three international editions: American, British and French. At the time, Condé Nast was migrating from drawings towards photography. He invested in printing techniques and pursued the innovative photographer Edward Steichen who ran the title's New York studio.
Steichen was a major early influence on Hoyningen-Huene, who started out as a talented painter responsible for devising backdrops. Yet Hoyningen-Huene soon developed his own style. “He interwove influences from antiquities to surrealism," says Tommy Rönngren, "taking inspiration from his friends Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau as well as Art Deco with furniture by Jean-Michel Frank. Photography is an important tool for storytelling and George captures the history of brands like Chanel, Balenciaga as well as Vogue and even Tsarist Russia.”
As well as creating elegantly lit, innovative studio set-ups at Vogue, Hoyningen-Huene discovered and collaborated with an endless parade of brilliant models in Paris. Like him, some of them had fled Russia for new lives in Europe, while others came from a diverse array of cultural backgrounds. His favourites included Ludmilla Feodoseyeva, Toto Koopman, and Lee Miller, who later became a photographer herself. Some of Hoyningen-Huene’s photographs of these empowered women were published in all three editions of Vogue, which swiftly brought him international renown as he contributed to defining the aesthetic of the publication.
He also, in turn, had an important impact on other fashion photographers in his midst. In the early 1930s in the Vogue Paris studio, Hoyningen-Huene taught Horst P. Horst about studio photography with a focus on the manipulation of light. "They shared a love of antiquities - classical forms and proportions never go out of fashion,” says Rönngren.
Horst, who would go on to become a seminal fashion photographer himself, also appears in Hoyningen-Huene's series of swimwear studies and homoerotic nudes. They visited the Louvre and the museums of Paris together. Even after parting ways romantically, surviving letters show how close the pair remained.
'The Divers' by George Hoyningen-Huene, said to be a favourite of Anna Wintour.
These evocative studies embody Hoyningen-Huene's interest in the human form. Models were often grouped as if relaxing by a swimming pool or beach and his monochromatic influence can be seen in the work of Francois Tuefferd and Herb Ritts, in addition to Horst and Miller. According to Rönngren, “Anna Wintour has often declared her favourite to be 'The Divers', which features Horst and Lee Miller on the roof of the Vogue Paris offices.”
Rönngren says they are currently working on digitising Hoyningen-Huene's archives and, “working towards a series with a leading streaming platform to go broader and deeper,” while they've also recently added former Victoria & Albert Museum curator Susannah Brown to their team. The hope is that more people will soon be able to enjoy Hoyningen-Huene's beautiful, era-defining works.