Adolphe de Meyer - The Substance of a Venetian Dream

A pioneer of fashion photography

Adolphe de Meyer was born in Paris in 1868 and enjoyed a fascinating and ground-breaking career in both Europe and the United States. Historians recognise him today principally as a pictorialist photographer (a movement that approached photography as an art form), as a virtuoso portraitist, and above all as a fashion photographer. He was one of the first to elevate fashion photography to artistic heights, creating elegant images for the pages of Vogue, Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar. It is less well known that he was also an interior decorator, designer, art collector, journalist and writer. He turned his whole life into a work of art, in which photography, clothing, interiors and stagings expressed a coherent artistic vision: that of a man continuously reinventing himself and his surroundings.

Globetrotter

His travels were a constant and invaluable source of inspiration, usually in the company of his wife and creative partner Olga. Japan was an early love, followed by China, India and South America. De Meyer made the world his field of experimentation, and he also proved able to apply the meticulous precision of his studio to the photographic work done outside his atelier. Despite a remarkably successful and influential career he was almost unknown when he died in Los Angeles in 1946.

A Venetian dream

Venice had a special place in his heart. Between 1904 and 1908/09 Adolphe and Olga rented the Palazzo Balbi-Valier, an opulent 17th-century palace surrounded by gardens, that De Meyer transformed from a dilapidated building into a landmark attraction that was pointed out to tourists by tour guides and gondoliers. The Palazzo was a vibrant cultural centre, whose guests included the photographers Gertrude Käsebier and Frances Benjamin Johnston and the art collector Isabella Gardner; De Meyer also invited Auguste Rodin to come and work there. Palazzo Balbi-Valier was first and foremost an extension of his studio, where he experimented with light, staging, and early colour photography, developing an aesthetic that would strongly influence his work and fashion vision.

Through eight different themes the exhibition explores his life, work, artistic network, and the many facets of his work, from fashion photography and interior design to art collection, as well as his special relationship with Olga. Visitors will have a rare opportunity to discover some of the secrets behind this ground-breaking fashion photographer, as well as the city that fired his imagination throughout his life.