"If you see something you have seen before, don't click the shutter," design pioneer Alexey Brodovitch once suggested to Gleb W. Derujinsky. Yet, rather than imitating, the photographer, award-winning cinematographer and commercial director, inventor, WWII veteran, world traveler, Ferrari America race-car driver, and champion glider pilot, preferred to have his own way and find his very personal visual semantics throughhout his life.
A recently released volume, Capturing Fashion: Derujinsky by his daughter Andrea Derujinsky (Flammarion, 2016; distributed by Rizzoli New York) explores his world via rarely seen images.
In his life Gleb Derujinsky (1925–2011) worked for Harper's Bazaar (1950-1970), Esquire, Look, Life, Glamour, Town and Country, and The New York Times Magazine, and this is the first monograph ever published about him.
Derujinsky first started taking pictures keeping firmly in mind Horst P. Horst of Vogue, but eventually developed his own style, got in a close relationship with Eileen and Jerry Ford of the Ford Model Agency and chronicled fashion taking mages of the top models of those years, among them Ruth Neumann, who became his wife.
"Gleb was an early visionary on a path that others were to follow," writes Eileen Ford in the forward to this volume, packed with memories and stories by models and friends.
Ford was right, there was definitely fantasy in Derujinsky's images: his models enjoy summer evenings along the Mississippi, they bask in the sun at the Bahamas, engage in a glamorous dinner at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, or are photographed in a bamboo forest in Maui; they are part of an atmospheric shot on Lake Pátzcuaro in the state of Michoacán in the Mesa Central region of Mexico, or ready to travel to faraway places via fabulous cars, boats, ships, planes, and trains, their dreamy wardrobes in tow.
Some pictures are surreal, others show a passion for architecture or art: Derujinsky asked models to scale the ladders being used for renovations on the Bond Clothing Store building signage, with a giant neon lit "B; he portrayed them among Jackson Pollock paintings and Giacometti sculptures or sitting in a Bertoia chair by Knoll Associates. In a 1961 shot a model in a see-through boat echoes visions of Sir John Everett Millais's painting "Ophelia"; in another billowing scarves blow in the wind, their prints creating a colourful art gallery-like background.
Two beautiful shoots show a model in a simple white sharkskin suit next to the Vrihat Samrat Yantra, the largest gnomon sundial in the world, and Ruth posing in one of the observatory's two sundials, the Jai Prakash Yantra, built of marble with intricate astronomical markings that echo her geometrically patterned two-piece cotton swimsuit.
Fashion-wise the images do not feature just your average Balenciaga, Balmain, Dior and Chanel designs, but many American and a few Italian designers as well.
Yet these exquisite creations divided in six sections are secondary to the arrangements and compositions. Derujinsky liked indeed to create correspondences, affinities and contrasts: he juxtaposed the line and palette of an outfit and the design and colours of cars, such as a Citroën DS 19 or a 1957 SC Bugatti, and, when he was sent to take pictures of the Paris collections after shooting for Harper's Bazaar for five years, he started scouting for unusual locations.
He took pictures in the early morning mist in the Jardin des Champs-Élysées with Ruth in a Dior black evening dress and iconic images in Maxim’s wine cellars. He eventually decided to take pictures of his models among real people immersed in real life and carrying out everyday tasks around Paris, so a street painter or a cheese seller with his goats, a lamplighter and a few postmen and an enthusiastic French butcher can be seen next to his models.
In August 1957 Harper's Bazaar commissioned him a photographic trip instigated by Boeing to celebrate the inaugural flight of the 707. This is the genesis of "Around the world", a monumental photographic adventure that touched eleven countries in 25 days and that started at Nara Park in Japan, stopped in Hong Kong, arrived in Thailand, Delhi and Jaipur, before moving on to the Temple of Poseidon outside Athens, Greece, and finishing off with a flamenco serenade at Las Cuevas de Luis Candelas restaurant in Madrid, Spain.
Some Derujinsky's images look like paintings: a model in an outfit in copper, bronze, and mustard tones stands next to a 1957 Ford Thunderbird "Copper Penny" convertible; a boat painted in flamboyant primary colors, with scarlet-framed porthole and a cigar-smoking fisherman turns into a surreal setting for Carmen Dell'Orefice in a red-wine wool zibeline double-breasted coat with huge pockets.
Derujinsky loved an unusual shot and when an Uranium Atom exhibit by Will Burtin was opened at the Union Carbide Building, 270 Park Avenue, in 1961, he shot his models around a giant display of glass spheres, finding it irresistible. He also dragged a Harper's Bazaar crew to Turkey where he took pictures of the models next to the colossal stone figures seated atop the Turkish mountain of Nemrod Dagh overlooking Mesopotamia and the Euphrates Valley.
One of his last shoots was taken in Monument Valley, home to the Navajo Indian Nation and known in Navajo as Tsé Bii' Ndzisgaii, a visually striking landscape, with models clad in early '60s design that introduce a radical change in fashion and style.
What happened to Derujinsky? At some point he turned his back to fashion photography, dumped his work in a warehouse and flew away to dedicate his life to his passion - flying sailplanes. And this is one more reason to love him - he never betrayed that unquenchable passion for freedom and adventures that he infused in his pictures.
Image credits for this post
All images © Gleb Derujinsky, from Capturing Fashion: Derujinsky (Flammarion, 2016).
1. Cover for the volume Capturing Fashion: Derujinsky (Flammarion, 2016). "Of all of the photos of my career as a model - I worked with Avedon, Hiro, Scavullo, Bob Richardson, Sokolsky, Diane Arbus, Saul Leiter, James Moore, and many others - this photo taken by Gleb Derujinsky is and has always been my favorite!" – Iris Bianchi.
2. P. 34, "B" is for Beautiful, Broadway, and Babes. The model on the left wears a dress in three shades of white wool and Stern and Stern chiffon with a grosgrain belt by Sportwhirl. The other sports a lace and wool dress by Greta Paltry. Their lovely pearl and rhinestone bracelets are by Mirian Haskell.
3. P. 179, A fabulous composition of copper, bronze, and mustard tones featuring a very limited edition 1957 Ford Thunderbird "Copper Penny" convertible, a 1956-57 Piper Apache PA-23-150, a timeless Louis Vuitton case, and an unidentified model, April 1957.
4. P. 83 As Ruth Neumann wafts through the Jardin des Champs-Elysées in this Dior black Robert Perrier silk organdy evening dress layered over white chiffon and finished with a black velvet ribbon, it's as if the early morning mist is filled with Diorissimo perfume, March 1958.
5. P. 121 Ruth Neumann poses in one of the observatory’' two sundials, the Jai Prakash Yantra, built of marble with intricate astronomical markings that happen to echo her geometrically patterned two-piece cotton swimsuit with orbital designs in deep blue and azure by Bandini.
6. P. 208 Grass-green wool cardigan jacket worn over a white blouse with pussycat bow, matched with a green-and-red checkered wool skirt, all by Robert Sloan. Bur-Mil Cameo stockings, Capezio shoes, Miriam Haskell earrings, Wear Right gloves, August 1961.
7. P. 216 Gleb Derujinsky in his glider after a flight, mid-to-late 1950s.
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