Norman Parkinson: Portraits in Fashion FROM THE PUBLISHER
In a career that spanned seven decades, Norman Parkinson dazzled the world with his sparkling inventiveness as a fashion photographer. His long association with Vogue, and his numerous assignments for Harper's Bazaar, Town & Country and other international magazines, brought him worldwide recognition. His impulsive and unstructured style changed forever the static, posed approach to fashion photography, while his enchanting, idiosyncratic persona charmed his sitters and projected an alluring and glamorous public image. Standing at 6 feet 5 inches tall, Parkinson was unable to remain unobtrusive behind the lens and instead created 'Parks', the moustachioed, ostentatiously elegant fashion photographer - as much a personality as those who sat for him, and frequently more flamboyant. His flawless professionalism, manners and well-rehearsed eccentricities reassured the uneasy sitter and disarmed the experienced. Parks reinvented himself for each decade of his career, from his ground-breaking spontaneous images of the 1930s, through the war years and the Swinging Sixties to the exotic locations of the 1970s and 1980s. By the end of his life (he died on location in 1990) he had become a household name, the recipient of a CBE, a photographer to the royal family, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, and the subject of a large-scale retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery, London. This impressive and timely book examines an unrivalled twentieth-century photographic portfolio. Parkinson was an incisive portraitist and photographed many of the greatest icons of the twentieth century as well as some of the world's most beautiful women. Included here are his incomparable fashion portraits of Iman, Jerry Hall, Audrey Hepburn and Ava Gardner, among many others. Shining through his work is Parks's inimitable wit and style, and his unique eye for glamour and beauty.
SYNOPSIS
This elegant monograph is the first to focus exclusively on the celebrated photographer's fashion portraits. Foreword by Iman.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Using fashion models as flexible or, on occasion, stiffly posed geometric forms, Parkinson began a photographic career in 1935 that lasted until his death in 1990. He melded British wit with visual elitism and spared nothing to get location, clothing, and model to form daring new photographic alliances. This virtuosity made him a celebrity. Muir (People in Vogue) has carefully selected a chronological review of Parkinson's photographs, taken from many fashion sources, especially Town & Country and Vogue. The result is a lively book that moves through the decades and trends revealed by Parkinson's images and a tribute to a creative thinker who made the isolated model, her clothing, and the often fantastic setting of the shot a brilliant reach into fantasy. Fine reproduction of the photos and Muir's excellent essay add sturdy reinforcement. Recommended.-David Bryant, New Canaan Lib., CT Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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