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Lot Essay
A leading international photographer, Peter Lindbergh mastered the art of infusing his carefully styled images with the immediacy, persuasiveness, and seeming authenticity of reportage. Working frequently with major fashion publications such as Vogue and Stern, his work also focused on a more classical iconography, in black and white, which he revisited throughout his career. Mathilde on the Eiffel Tower, 1989, is an emblematic example and a signature subject associated with his name.
Inspired by the legendary photograph taken by photojournalist Marc Riboud, Painter of the Eiffel Tower, from 1953, Peter Lindbergh in recreating this with model Linda Evangelista immortalizes a moment in the interwoven histories of fashion and photography. Riboud’s work which was published in LIFE magazine in 1953, had such an impact that it enabled Riboud, then at the beginning of his career, to join the prestigious Magnum agency. A print of this famous image, signed by the photographer, is offered for sale as Lot 62.
And Riboud was not the first photographer to do so, in 1939 Erwin Blumenfeld photographed Lisa Fonssagrives in a white dress on the heights of the Iron Lady. Lindbergh, by recreating the scene in a more relaxed setting, pays homage to these works of Twentieth-century photographic history, while at the same time emancipating himself from them. His interpretation offers a more radical vision, both through the contrasts of blacks and greys and in the choice of the model and the way she poses undressed. The present print of Mathilde on the Eiffel Tower is unique, both in its remarkable format and in its limited edition, being numbered one from an edition of one.
Inspired by the legendary photograph taken by photojournalist Marc Riboud, Painter of the Eiffel Tower, from 1953, Peter Lindbergh in recreating this with model Linda Evangelista immortalizes a moment in the interwoven histories of fashion and photography. Riboud’s work which was published in LIFE magazine in 1953, had such an impact that it enabled Riboud, then at the beginning of his career, to join the prestigious Magnum agency. A print of this famous image, signed by the photographer, is offered for sale as Lot 62.
And Riboud was not the first photographer to do so, in 1939 Erwin Blumenfeld photographed Lisa Fonssagrives in a white dress on the heights of the Iron Lady. Lindbergh, by recreating the scene in a more relaxed setting, pays homage to these works of Twentieth-century photographic history, while at the same time emancipating himself from them. His interpretation offers a more radical vision, both through the contrasts of blacks and greys and in the choice of the model and the way she poses undressed. The present print of Mathilde on the Eiffel Tower is unique, both in its remarkable format and in its limited edition, being numbered one from an edition of one.