Staging beauty

“Fashion is an expression of the times. Elegance is something else again”

HORST P. HORST

From early on, Gala and Salvador Dalí regularly had their portraits taken by the most prestigious photographers of the time. Aware of the value and the impact of their image, they paraded before the cameras of key auteurs of the 20th century, such as Man Ray, Brassaï, Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn and Philippe Halsman, with many of whom they maintained a personal and professional relationship that endured over the years, as they did with Horst P. Horst.

The photographs of Gala and Salvador Dalí allow us to capture the most characteristic features of Horst’s style. For all their apparent naturalness, his studio portraits were conceived almost like sculptures: the light, the composition, the gesture… everything was meticulously studied. Horst was not seeking psychological depth; what he sought was to capture the most beautiful, the most elegant image.

While it is true that Horst’s work is, in essence, an idealised projection of reality, his contact sheets reveal a more complicit, more relaxed gaze. The warmth and the trust that Horst habitually transmitted to his models is evident in these documents.

“The uniform is essential in order to conquer. Throughout my life, the occasions are very rare when I have abased myself to civilian clothes. I am always dressed in the uniform of Dalí.”

SALVADOR DALÍ

GALA AND DALÍ’S FASHION ARCHIVE

Fashion came to be a key element in the staging of Gala and Salvador Dalí, a tool that allows them to express themselves even when someone else was creating the image. In front of the camera, both chose their clothes and accessories with great care: nothing was left to chance. Gala opted for sophisticated tailored jackets by Arthur Falkenstein (a favourite designer in American artistic circles), and she combined these with necklaces by Coco Chanel. Dalí, for his part, paid the greatest attention to details: a tie pin with the face of a cardinal or a tie by Pierre Cardin with his surname embroidered in rhinestones serving as a counterpoint to his iconic moustache.

THE HORST P. HORST COLLECTION

The exhibition Dalí/Horst. Crossed Gazes has been made possible thanks to the study and cataloguing of the valuable documentary archive devoted to the photographer at the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí. The research has served to expand the collection with the acquisition of period magazines and monographs and to establish contact with The Horst Foundation, which promotes and disseminates the work of the legendary photographer.

The collection consists mainly of portrait shots and contact sheets of Gala and Salvador Dalí, specialist publications, and period copies of Vogue magazine. It includes portraits of the society chronicler Elsa Maxwell and the model Estrella Boissevain, also known for her role as a bullfighter and flamenco dancer, as well as several contact sheets from a session that Horst dedicated to the budding actor William Rothlein, who was to star in a biographical film about Salvador Dalí.

Especially worth noting are a previously little known portrait of Gala by Dalí, in gouache and oil, together with several positives of a collage conceived by the artist, based on two photos of Horst, which was published in Vogue in June 1943. The image was intended to introduce ‘Madame Salvador Dalí’ to the American public.