Horst paul albert bormann biography

Horst P. His father was a successful merchant. In his teens, he met dancer Evan Weidemann at the home of his aunt, and this aroused his interest in avant-garde art. In the late s, Horst studied at Hamburg Kunstgewerbeschule , leaving there in to go to Paris [ 2 ] to study under the architect Le Corbusier. While in Paris, he befriended many people in the art community and visited many galleries.

In he met Vogue photographer Baron George Hoyningen-Huene , a half-Baltic, half-American nobleman, and became his photographic assistant, occasional model, and lover.

He became an American citizen in , changing his surname from Bohrmann to Horst in order to avoid confusion with the Nazi leader Martin Bormann.

While there, they visited photographer Cecil Beaton , who was working for the British edition of Vogue. In , Horst began his association with Vogue , publishing his first photograph in French Vogue in December of that year. It was a full-page advertisement showing a model in black velvet holding a Klytia scent bottle. His first exhibition took place at La Plume d'Or in Paris in It was reviewed by Janet Flanner in The New Yorker , and this review, which appeared after the exhibition ended, made Horst instantly prominent.

Horst made a portrait of Bette Davis the same year, the first in a series of public figures he would photograph during his career. Horst rented an apartment in New York City in , and while residing there met Coco Chanel , whom Horst called "the queen of the whole thing". He would photograph her fashions for three decades. He met Valentine Lawford , British diplomat in , and they lived together until Lawford's death in Horst, whom they raised together.