David Seidner
David Seidner (18 February 1957 – 6 June 1999) was an American photographer known for his portraits and fashion photography.[1][2][3]
Biography
Career and style
David Seidner was nineteen when his first cover picture was published and twenty-one when the first of many solo exhibitions of his photographs was shown in Paris. Over the following 20 years he created both "commercial" and "artistic" work. In the 1980s he was under a contract with
His immense cultural knowledge enabled him to draw on the past to create modern yet timeless images. His nudes evoke
Seidner's work had several defining periods. In its evolution, his images became more and more pure, ending with the simplicity of the orchid series, which was taken in his Miami apartment using an auto- focus camera and colour negative film.
A very important phase of David Seidner's work was his series of nudes, which were also collected in book form as Nudes, to accompany an exhibition at New York's
In 1998 David Seidner made a series of pictures to honor the John Singer Sargent retrospective at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. He photographed 18 descendants of the British and American aristocrats whose elegant portraits Sargent painted around the turn of the century. The result: sumptuous portraits that pay homage to Sargent without imitating his paintings. "What I'm most interested in is evoking the spirit of a painting through the fold of fabric, the position of a hand, the quality of light on skin", said the photographer. The portrait of Helena Bonham Carter was selected for the millennial exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, as one of the 100 great photographs of the century and also received a LIFE Magazine Alfred Eisenstaedt Photograph of the Year Award (1999).
Seidner's Faces of Contemporary Art series totals 57 portraits taken over a period of 19 years. Each portrait was taken in exactly the same context. From portrait to portrait, it is only the faces that change. Everything was precisely measured and calculated for a perfect alignment of size and background. He used a very complicated printing process called
Mr. Seidner also had over a dozen solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions at the
Books by Seidner
- (2002) Theatre de la Mode: Fashion Dolls: The Survival of Haute Couture Photographs by David Seidner (ISBN 0-935278-56-7)
- (1999) Artists at Work: Inside the Studios of Today's Most Celebrated Artists by David Seidner and Diana Edkins (978-0847822379)
- (1999) Portraits by David Seidner (2-84323-152-3)
- (1998) The Face of Contemporary Art by David Seidner (3-929078-46-5)
- (1996) Lisa Fonssagrives: Three Decades of Classic Fashion Photography by David Seidner and Martin Harrison (0-500-01750-6)
- (1995) Nudes by David Seidner (3-929078-20-1)
- (1990) Le Théâtre de la Mode Photography by David Seidner (2-906450-41-3)
- (1989) David Seidner text by Patrick Mauries (0-8478-1114-X)
- (1986) Moments de Mode by David Seidner(2-7335-0107-0)
References
- ^ "Obituary: David Seidner". The Independent. 1999-06-22. Retrieved 2024-01-28.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-01-28.
- ^ "David Seidner". International Center of Photography. 2022-12-17. Retrieved 2024-01-28.