Frank Horvat: Please don’t smile

Frank Horvat: Please don’t smile takes its title from an instruction Horvat often gave during fashion sittings. The phrase is a useful key to a photographer who treated the studio convention of the compliant, smiling model as something to test rather than obey. Published by Hatje Cantz in 2016, the book gathers 293 photographs across 256 pages and appears in German, English and French in a hardcover volume of 252 by 336 mm, designed by Urs Albrecht.

Horvat, born in 1928 in Abbazia (now Opatija, Croatia), worked for Elle, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and other magazines, photographing models and celebrities. But the fashion image in his hands is rarely sealed off from the street. From the 1950s he moved assignments outdoors—one 1959 picture for Jours de France places a model in the middle of a vegetable market—and he experimented with abrupt cropping and quotations from cinema. He mostly worked without artificial light, often with a 35mm Leica held at hip level. These methods gave his pictures a reportorial alertness; he has been described as a precursor of “mode-reportage,” fashion photography conducted as if it were news.

That approach changes the emotional register of the clothes. Horvat’s women are not passive mannequins; the photographs are notable for their sensuality and elegance and for a palpable respect for the sitter. The title’s refusal of the smile is thus more than a studio aside: it points to a working method in which composure, movement and the accidental texture of the street carry more weight than manufactured charm.

For collectors, the book’s interest lies in this conjunction of commercial fashion and unguarded urban observation, assembled as a substantial selection. The trilingual edition and a design credit for Urs Albrecht are part of the book’s bibliographic identity. Its historical value is specific: it documents a postwar photographer who used the freedoms of the street to loosen the grammar of the fashion picture, allowing commissioned work to retain a sense of the live encounter and a personal viewpoint.

A photograph by Frank Horvat always shows a very individual view. Shining in numerous genres, Horvat (*1928 in Abbazia, today’s Opatija, Croatia) likes to transgress boundaries, and he also does not care about the comme il faut in his fashion photographs either: as early as the fifties, he goes out onto the street, brazenly positions a model in the middle of a vegetable market (1959) for Jours de France, or shortly afterwards experiments with boldly cropped motifs or amusing film quotes. In doing so, Horvat mostly dispenses with artificial light and shoots many of his fantastic pictures with a 35mm Leica from the hip, so to speak. He works for Elle, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and other major magazines, with famous models and celebrities, and he is the first photographer ever to use Photoshop for his work. Respect for the portrayed women and palpable endearment distinguish Horvat’s sensual, elegant pictures from those by all other photographers on the fashion scene.

Designed by: Urs Albrecht
German, English, French
May 2016, 256 Pages , 293 Photos
hardcover
252mm x 336mm
ISBN:978-6-70574028-1

Publisher page editorial text:
A photograph by Frank Horvat always shows a very individual view. Shining in numerous genres, Horvat (*1928 in Abbazia, today’s Opatija, Croatia) likes to transgress boundaries, and he also does not care about the comme il faut in his fashion photographs either: as early as the fifties, he goes out onto the street, brazenly positions a model in the middle of a vegetable market (1959) for Jours de France, or shortly afterwards experiments with boldly cropped motifs or amusing film quotes. In doing so, Horvat mostly dispenses with artificial light and shoots many of his fantastic pictures with a 35mm Leica from the hip, so to speak. He works for Elle, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and other major magazines, with famous models and celebrities, and he is the first photographer ever to use Photoshop for his work. Respect for the portrayed women and palpable endearment distinguish Horvat’s sensual, elegant pictures from those by all other photographers on the fashion scene.
AUSSTELLUNG

Jeu de Paume, Paris
16.6.-17.9.2023

Publisher source ↗