Photographer’s natural fashion shots helped herald the age of the supermodel
Peter Lindbergh, who has died aged 74, brought a sense of realism to fashion photography, shooting his subjects in largely unretouched black and white, with little makeup, and in poses that dispensed with excessive artifice; he detested what he referred to as the drive for ‘‘senseless perfection’’.
It was an approach that endeared him to Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and one of his last assignments was working with her when she guest-edited the September edition of Vogue. The issue, which celebrated ‘‘forces for change’’, included campaigning actresses such as Salma Hayek and Jane Fonda, as well as the environmental activist Greta
Thunberg and
New Zealand
Prime Minister
Jacinda
Ardern, all photographed by Lindbergh.
It was with Vogue that he had forged his global reputation: his January 1990 cover shot on the streets of Lower Manhattan featuring Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Tatjana Patitz heralded the era of the supermodel.
In 2017 he reflected: ‘‘When people ask me if the supermodels can happen again, I always say no. Women are liberated now, freed from what they had to be, all perfect earrings and perfect makeup.’’
He was born Peter Brodbeck in Germanoccupied Poland, but was brought up on his uncle’s sheep farm overlooking the steel town of Duisburg in Germany. Handball was his first passion, then after leaving school at 15 he worked as a department-store windowdresser. Following military service he attended the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts.
He was a fan of German expressionist films, but his principal artistic inspiration came from Holland, where the family went on holidays. ‘‘I preferred actively seeking out Van Gogh’s inspirations, my idol, rather than painting the mandatory portraits and landscapes taught in art schools,’’ he recalled.
He spent a year in Arles, a town closely associated with Van Gogh, before hitchhiking his way around Spain and North Africa. He returned to Germany, and had his first exhibition in 1969.
His brother, however, told him his work was boring and, when a job as a photographer’s assistant came up, he took it. Moving to Dusseldorf, he changed his name to Lindbergh after hearing of a photographer called Brodbeck.
He worked mainly for Stern magazine, and within a few years was Germany’s highestpaid advertising photographer. With his reputation spreading, he then moved to Paris.
He did much early work for the Japanese fashion house Comme des Garcons, with brooding models and a grainy aesthetic. His rise was boosted by his lack of ego – a quality not always found in star photographers. The supermodel Nadja Auermann described him
‘‘Yes, well that’s the dark side to democracy.’’ Lindbergh on Instagram models measuring success by the number of followers
in the 1990s as ‘‘very zen and balanced. He never speaks to anybody in a bad tone, even in a difficult situation’’.
His empathetic approach meant models listened to him. In 1988 he advised Evangelista to have her hair cut short. His ensuing photograph, which became known as ‘‘the white shirt picture’’, helped propel her to the top of the fashion world, and her hairstyle spawned imitations around the globe; there was even an Evangelista wig.
That year, in a precursor to his 1990 Vogue cover, he shot Evangelista, Turlington and other models for the magazine, all also clad in white shirts, on the beach at Malibu. The photograph exuded the naturalness and spontaneity that characterised his best work. The 1990 Vogue cover inspired the video for George Michael’s single Freedom, which featured the five models and consolidated their grip on the fashion world and beyond.
He later admitted there had been some post-production work: ‘‘It was retouched a little bit here, a little there. But with Photoshop now, you would transform the whole thing . . . The number of beautiful women who have asked me to lengthen their legs or move their eyes further apart, you
would not believe. It’s a culture of madness.’’
Aside from his work for Vogue, his style became the defining feature of campaigns for the likes of Armani and Calvin Klein. There were more than a dozen books, and he made documentaries such as Models, The Film (1991); Inner Voices (1999), which won the best documentary prize at the Toronto International Film Festival; Pina Bausch, der Fensterputzer (‘‘The Windowcleaner’’, 2001) and Everywhere At Once (2007), narrated by Jeanne Moreau.
He shot three Pirelli calendars. His 2002 calendar marked the first time actresses rather than models had been used; Germaine Greer described it as ‘‘the most challenging calendar yet’’. For his 2017 calendar he captured his subjects, including Helen Mirren, without make-up. ‘‘I always say, ‘Take the makeup off!’ ’’ he declared.
He also photographed movie posters, and album covers for artists such as Tina Turner, Beyonce and Jane Birkin.
In 2017 he was asked what he thought of Instagram models, whose perceived success is measured by numbers of followers. ‘‘Yes, well that’s the dark side to democracy,’’ he replied.
He was married first to Astrid and later to Petra, who survives him along with four sons. – Telegraph Group