Constantin Joffé - Tailor-Made: Fashion Photographs from the Collection of Peter Fetterman New York Thursday, June 18, 2020 | Phillips

Tailor-Made: Fashion Photographs from the...

Online Auction 18 - 25 June 2020 

  • Provenance

    The Estate of Constantin Joffé
    Collection of Tom Jacobson, San Diego

  • Catalogue Essay

    Few fashion photographers have as colorful a background as Constantin Joffé. Born in Russia, Joffé spent his early years as a photographer in Paris, working for the fashion magazines. At the outset of World War II, Joffé joined the French Foreign Legion and served as an anti-tank gunner until his capture by the Germans in 1940. His 1944 memoir, We Were Free, documents his time in captivity.

    Remarkably, Joffé escaped captivity and found his way to New York where he was hired by Condé Nast to document wartime fashions. Joffé’s inventive approach, and his eye for the elegance of the time, set the tone for fashion photography’s flowering in the post-war period. Joffé was as adept with color photography as he was with black-and-white, and he was one of a select group of 17 photographers covered in Alexander Lieberman’s classic 1951 book, The Art and Technique of Fashion Photography, alongside Irving Penn, Horst P. Horst, and Norman Parkinson, among others.

    The Constantin Joffé image offered here was used in 1997 on the reception invitation for The Fords: 50 Years in Fashion at Staley-Wise Gallery in New York. The reception honored Eileen and Jerry Ford of the legendary Ford Modeling Agency, and the attendant exhibition served as a celebration of their immeasurable contributions to the field of fashion photography.

21

Constantin Joffé

Untitled (fashion)

1940s
Gelatin silver print.
13 5/8 x 10 5/8 in. (34.6 x 27 cm)
‘Studio Associates, Inc., 2 West 37th Street, New York 18, N.Y.’ stamp and collection notations by Tom Jacobson in pencil on the verso.

Estimate
$2,500 - 3,500 

Sold for $6,875

Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs

+1 212 940 1245

Tailor-Made: Fashion Photographs from the Collection of Peter Fetterman

Online Auction 18 - 25 June 2020