Peter Lindbergh: Reinventing fashion photography

When pioneering fashion and portrait photographer Peter Lindbergh died in September 2019, he had just completed curating his own retrospective. Starting February 5 at Düsseldorf's Kunstpalast, "Untold Stories" includes a large number of unseen photographs from the early 1980s to the present. Other works on show were commissioned by magazines such as "Vogue," "Harper's Bazaar" and "Rolling Stone."

Lindbergh, who was born Peter Brodbeck in 1944 and was raised in industrial Duisburg in western Germany before pursuing an art career in Berlin, was a fashion photographer who also perfected his own artistic portraiture style, mostly of celebrities like actress Uma Thurman (pictured in New York in 2016 for the Pirelli calendar), or an ageing Jeanne Moreau captured for "Vanity Fair" in 2003.

Düsseldorf's Kunstpalast museum has called the exhibition Lindbergh's "personal statement on fashion photography." With his black and white portraits, the photographer contributed to the rising myth and celebrity surrounding supermodels in the 1980s, including Linda Evangelista — shown here with Michaela Bercu and Kirsten Owen (from left) in 1988.

Lindbergh portrayed women with raw expression, and often without make-up. His focus was not on fashion but people — even if hidden by a light bulb, as here with the Dutch model Querelle Jansen in Paris in 2012. When first working at "Vogue" he wanted to challenge fashion photography stereotypes and "move towards a kind of beauty more linked to the personality of the woman," he once said.

Lindbergh's interpretation of fashion photography set new standards in terms of staging contemporary culture. He was disturbed by the fact that women in fashion were often portrayed as mere clothes racks. Lindbergh wanted to change this by photographing his models completely undressed. In 1997, he instructed Karen Elson to stretch her limbs and muscles in a sitting in Los Angeles.

Lindbergh only turned to fashion photography in the 1970s. In fact, it wasn't until the age of 27 that he first bought a camera — and only to take pictures of his brother's children. The exhibition in Düsseldorf's Kunstpalast, which runs through June 1, comes full circle: Lindbergh did his professional training with Hans Lux — an advertising photographer from the same city.