Vanity Fair was launched at the dawn of the jazz age by Condé Nast, whose vision was to produce an intelligent magazine reflecting the era’s vibrant culture. Culled from its pages are 150 portraits of artistic, literary, sporting, fashion and high-society luminaries, immortalised by photographers from Cecil Beaton and Edward Steichen to Mario Testino and Annie Leibovitz. In the early selection from 1913-1936, artists, dancers, writers, scientists and other intellectuals hang next to society beauties: a young Einstein; an informal HG Wells in his garden; Jean Cocteau in the studio; a glamorous Adele Astair posing with brother and dancing partner, Fred.
Publication of Vanity Fair was suspended in 1936, owing to the Depression and turbulent global events, relaunching in the heady ’80s. The contemporary photos are more daring: contrast a semi-dressed Helen Mirren applying make-up in her dressing room with the 1928 photo of a flawless, demure Louise Brooks artfully arranged on a chair. And who can forget Leibovitz’s controversial portrait of a heavily pregnant Demi Moore on the August 1991 cover?
The majority of the recent images depict Hollywood stars, which speaks volumes about how the status and power of celebrity evolved in the twentieth century, though the inclusion of Jonas Karlsson’s portrait of Ground Zero firefighters indicates how world events are, possibly, altering our perception of conventional celebrity. Perhaps the dawn of a less ‘superstar’-obsessed society is finally approaching?
