The son of Polish immigrants, Jeanloup Sieff discovered his passion for photography in Paris in the 1940s, when he received a camera for his 14th birthday. His breakthrough came only years later when he was given a commission from French magazine Elle. From then on, his list of clients rapidly increased, reading like a catalogue of who's who in the world of high gloss magazines such as Vogue, Esquire, Paris Match, and Harper’s Bazaar. It is not surprising therefore that Sieff is remembered particularly as a fashion photographer - a categorization against which he fought vehemently throughout his life. Besides well-known fashion photographs, a wide-range and comprehensive collection of reportage, portraits, nudes and landscape photographs was created. Without fail, his singular view through the lens continuously sought uniquely specific forms through a ubiquitous interplay of organic elements.

He never stopped taking pictures, though. Or pitching himself into the world. In 1986, he published two books, one of naked young women, one of a 1959 French miners strike – his anxieties often shaded his work with a desire to follow too many paths. He did campaigns for Patek Philippe watches. And he had one more moment in the sun of fame and fashionability. Most famously, most influentially, he was used in the early 1990s, to rebrand Häagen-Dazs ice cream with his sensuous – and smutless – nudes. Decades on, the atmosphere and imagery of those pictures is still resonant, still being used to sell us things. Marvelous,” said Sonia Sieff, when asked about her childhood with the late Jeanloup Sieff, her father and one of France’s great fashion photographers. “Marvelous, because he took good care of my brother and me … He taught us about the beauty in the world.” Long before Sonia’s birth, Jeanloup made his first fashion photo in 1952, and he spent the next two decades working for French Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Queen, Jardin des Modes, and Vogue, producing some of the iconic images for which he’s now known — like Astrid Heeren, cigarillo-in-mouth, in Palm Beach. SONIA SIEFF — He’d just say, “Just try it. It’s easier than you think.” And, magically, the women would get undressed. SONIA SIEFF — He loved literature. He loved words. His secret dream was to become a writer and to win the Prix Goncourt! Portrait of Charlotte Rampling for Vogue France, 1970 Regarding fashion (and society), the Seventies were indissolubly tied to a synthesis of the sexes, which first occurred through the widespread use of trousers, and the affirmation of seductive femininity. Ironically, that symbol of joyous liberation called the miniskirt made way for new portrayals of the female body in public. A woman’s success was no longer measured by the shortness of a hem, which now came in a wide variety of lengths. In Paris, women discovered the androgyny of the tuxedo. In New York, they flaunted their figures in body-hugging wrap dresses. Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin played at hyper-sexualizing bodies and creating a photography style that was blatantly sexy, which infuriated the feminists who did not catch the irony of the gesture. Newton’s message was clear: women are objects – the Alpha women of the future.

He sums up his work this way: “There are no reasons for my photographs, nor any rules; all depends on the mood of the moment, on the mood of the model. “ On art … SONIA SIEFF — Jeanloup’s pictures were accurate, in the same way that Yves’ clothes were perfectly cut! Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.

He returned to Paris to produce assignments for Vogue, Elle and Nova. Additionally, he did advertising and personal projects. His work was wide-ranging. He made portraits of notables like Catherine Deneuve (opening photo, bottom row, center image) and fellow French photographers Jacques Henri Lartigue and Robert Doisneau. Jacques Henri Lartigue, 1972 and Robert Doisneau, 1975 portraits by Jeanloup Sieff. Multi-genres Jeanloup Sieff Credit: Gamma Rapho via Getty Images-Philippe PACHE. He joined the Magnum photographic agency in 1958, before his fashion forays, and was applauded covering the death of Pope Pius XII. He worked for them throughout Europe until he left for New York and started with Harpers Bazaar, immersing himself in the diametrically opposed world of fashion. Remember, his use of a wide angle lenses in fashion and celebrity portraiture was groundbreaking at the time.His Death Valley and British landscape photos were considered by many political in nature, especially when incorporated in fashion work. But he tended to downplay that side of his work in the tumultuous 60’s. Jeanloup Sieff once described his approach which would become a personal hallmark as: “the pleasure in crazy light, the pleasure in making forms visible, to compose spaces and encounters”. The exhibition “Shadow Lines” unites his particular joy of photography, his unusual and often humorous pictorial language, and shows a compilation of dreamlike landscapes and poetic nudes from the late 1960s to the 1990s. There is very little doubt that it was the American and French cinema of the time that greatly influenced his work. His Vogue fashion shoots of wide angle and swinging London in the 1960s are some of the most recognizable images of the decade, …probably even more so than his contemporaries of the time. Ballet dancers of the day were a special interest he had, including the very famous Rudolph Nureyev, probably the most famous jet setting dancer of the time. When asked about this fascination with dance, he said he was attempting to capture the space filled with movement. Sieff was really trying to reproduce the French art masters, Rodin, Seurat, etc., in film, and applied this to his fashion shoots. 60’s Politics