You would look through a magazine and literally stop in your tracks once you got to his photos and, once you had stopped, a dialogue could ensue.”

Photographers like Chris first and foremost wanted to do pictures that were page stoppers. And as the images got more and more shocking, it got to the point where they became a bit disturbing. So it was a reaction to what had come before. You would look through a magazine and literally stop in your tracks once you got to his photos' – Christie BrinkleyĪs von Wangenheim's frequent collaborator, model Christie Brinkley explains in the book, “The thing was to try to shock. 'Chris first and foremost wanted to do pictures that were page stoppers. Von Wangenheim's work was macabre, sexy, incendiary, chic and in very high demand, and before long he was shooting for everyone from Dior to US Vogue to Playboy. The 60s and 70s saw a wave of violence seep its way into all areas of popular culture, from Andy Warhol's Death and Disaste period to films like Dirty Harry and Taxi Driver, and von Wangenheim simply thought, “the violence is in the culture so why shouldn’t it be in our pictures?” What ensued were hugely impactive images filled with gun-toting beauties, teeth-baring dobermans, blood, bare breasts and billowing smoke. The flamboyant Piaggi had a vibrant and provocative vision that perfectly aligned itself with von Wangenheim's aesthetic, and under her reign he began to develop his unique, yet definitively 70s style.

But it wasn't until von Wangenheim captured the attention of newly appointed special features editor at Vogue Italia, Anna Piaggi, in 1969 that the young photographer found his moment to shine. Von Wangenheim carried this fascination with him into adulthood, particularly identifying with the work of American fashion photographers, and in 1965 he relocated to New York City to kickstart his own career. He cut his teeth as an assistant for Harper's Bazaar photographer James Moore, and as a result secured a few pages in the magazine. By this time von Wangenheim was living in the Bavarian mountains with his mother and sister and, inspired by a kindly photographer living in the upstairs flat, had developed a burgeoning interest in photography.

His father, an officer in the German Army, died in Soviet captivity in 1953 (most likely a suicide), a tragedy that would go on to inform his son's dark nature. Von Wangenheim was born in Breig, in what was then a war-torn East Prussia, in 1942. Now, a forthcoming Rizzoli monograph about the pioneering image-maker gives us a welcome excuse to revisit his brilliant oeuvre. From 1968 until his death in a car accident in 1981, he ranked alongside Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin in his masterful encapsulation of the 1970s zeitgeist. The Paris police declared they were 'so obscene that even to pronounce the titles would be to commit an indecency'.Chris von Wangenheim was one of the most groundbreaking fashion photographers of the 20th century. As well as Moulin's soft-focus pubescent girls with vestigial breasts dressed as Bedouin maids, there were more explicit under-the-counter daguerreotypes of amateur teenage girls which got him a month in prison. Delacroix himself used Eugene Durieu's nude photographs.īut sometimes 'artistic nudes' became dirty pictures. Often these pictures were described as 'artistic nudes' and were registered at the Bibliotheque Nationale as study materials for painters. The respectable pioneers of French photography, Auguste Belloc and Felix-Jacques Moulin for example, ran lucrative occult trades in pornography. Pornography and erotica predated the camera - blushing art historians may under pressure confess that Titian's Venus of Urbino is clearly masturbating - but the new image-capture technology of the nineteenth century increased the supply and demand for both. BOB CARLOS CLARKE, FOR DOLLS THAT DO DISHES.

Helmut newton girl with a gun