Steven Meisel is an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
photographer, who obtained popular acclaim with his work in US and Italian
VogueVogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
and his photographs of friend
MadonnaMadonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
in her 1992 book
SexSex is a coffee table book written by Madonna with photographs by Steven Meisel Studio and film frames taken from film shot by Fabien Baron. The book was edited by Glenn O'Brien. Sex was released on October 21, 1992 by Warner Books...
. He is now considered one of the most successful fashion photographers in the industry, shooting regularly for both US and Italian
Vogue, and lately
WW is a monthly American fashion magazine published by Condé Nast Publications, who purchased original owner Fairchild Publications in 1999. It was created in 1971 by the publisher of sister magazine Woman's Wear Daily, James Brady. The magazine is an oversize format – ten inches wide and...
(also published by
Condé NastCondé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a magazine publisher. In the U.S., it produces 18 consumer magazines, including Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, as well as four business-to-business publications, 27 websites, and more than 50 apps...
).
Early life
His fascination for beauty and models started at a young age. At that time Meisel would not play with toys, but would instead draw women all the time. He used to turn to magazines like
Vogue and
Harper's BazaarHarper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
as sources of inspiration for his drawings. Meisel dreamt of women from the
high societyIn social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...
like Gloria Guinness and
Babe PaleyBarbara "Babe" Cushing Mortimer Paley was an American socialite and style icon. She was known by the popular nickname "Babe" for most of her life. She was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1958....
, who personified to his eyes the ideas of beauty and high society. Other icons were his mother and his sister.
As he became obsessed with models such as
TwiggyLesley Lawson née Hornby known as Twiggy is an English model, actress, and singer. In the early-1960s she became a prominent British teenage model of swinging sixties London with others such as Penelope Tree....
,
VeruschkaVera Gräfin von Lehndorff-Steinort is a German model, actress, and artist who was popular during the 1960s...
, and
Jean ShrimptonJean Rosemary Shrimpton is an English model and actress. She was an icon of Swinging London and is considered to be one of the world's first supermodels....
, at 12 years old he asked some girlfriends to call model agencies and, by pretending to be secretaries of Richard Avedon, to get pictures of the models. To meet famous model Twiggy, the 12-year-old Meisel stood outside waiting for her at
Melvin SokolskyMelvin Sokolsky is an American photographer and film director.Born in New York City, Sokolsky had no formal training in photography, but started to use his father's box camera at about the age of ten. Always analytical, he started to realize the role that emulsion played as he compared his own...
's studio.
He studied at the
High School of Art and DesignThe High School of Art and Design is a Career and Technical Education high school located at 1075 Second Avenue, between 56th and 57th Streets in Manhattan, New York City, New York.It is operated by the New York City Department of Education...
and
Parsons The New School for DesignParsons The New School For Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is the art and design college of The New School university. It is located in New York City's Greenwich Village, and has produced artists and designers such as Marc Jacobs, Dean and Dan Caten, Norman Rockwell, Donna Karan, Jane...
where he attended different courses but, as affirmed in an interview with Ingrid Sischy for
Vogue France, he finally majored in fashion illustration.
Career
One of Meisel's first jobs was to work for fashion designer
HalstonRoy Halston Frowick, also known as Halston was a clothing designer of the 1970s. His long dresses or copies of his style were popular fashion wear in mid-1970s discotheques.-Early life and career:...
as an illustrator. He also taught illustration part-time at
ParsonsParsons The New School For Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is the art and design college of The New School university. It is located in New York City's Greenwich Village, and has produced artists and designers such as Marc Jacobs, Dean and Dan Caten, Norman Rockwell, Donna Karan, Jane...
. Meisel never thought he could become a photographer. He admired photographers like
Jerry SchatzbergJerry Schatzberg is a photographer and film director.-Career:Schatzberg was born to a Jewish family of furriers and grew up in the Bronx. He photographed for magazines such as Vogue, Esquire and McCalls. He made his debut as a feature film director with 1970's Puzzle of a Downfall Child starring...
,
Irving PennIrving Penn was an American photographer known for his portraiture and fashion photography.-Early career:Irving Penn studied under Alexey Brodovitch at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art from which he was graduated in 1938. Penn's drawings were published by Harper's Bazaar and he...
,
Richard AvedonRichard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...
and
Bert SternBertram Stern is an American fashion and celebrity portrait photographer.-Marilyn Monroe:His best known work is arguably The Last Sitting, a collection of 2,500 photographs taken of Marilyn Monroe over a three day period, six weeks before her death, taken for Vogue...
. He felt that illustration was a thing of the past and found photography as a lasting medium. Later on, while working at
Women's Wear DailyWomen's Wear Daily is a fashion-industry trade journal sometimes called "the bible of fashion." WWD delivers information and intelligence on changing trends and breaking news in the fashion, beauty and retail industries with a readership composed largely of retailers, designers, manufacturers,...
as an illustrator, he went to
Elite Model ManagementElite Model Management is a large modeling agency based in New York and Paris. It is a subsidiary of Elite World S.A.-History:Founded in France in 1972 by John Casablancas and Alain Kittler, it was rebought in 1990 by Nicholas Farrae. Elite World S.A. is the parent company of Elite Model...
where two girls working there allowed him take pictures of some of their models. He would photograph them in his apartment in
Gramercy ParkGramercy Park is a small, fenced-in private park in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park is at the core of both the neighborhood referred to as either Gramercy or Gramercy Park and the Gramercy Park Historic District...
or on the street: on weekdays he would work at
Women's Wear Daily and on weekends with the models. One of them was
Phoebe CatesPhoebe Cates is an American film actress, model, and entrepreneur known for her roles in several teen films, most notably Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Gremlins.-Early life:...
. Some of these models took their pictures to
SeventeenSeventeen is an American magazine for teenagers. It was first published in September 1944 by Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications. News Corporation bought Triangle in 1988, and sold Seventeen to K-III Communications in 1991. Primedia sold the magazine to Hearst in 2003. It is still in the...
magazine to show their model books and the people at
Seventeen subsequently called Meisel and asked if he wanted to work with them.
Meisel currently works for many different fashion magazines, including US and Italian
VogueVogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
, in which he has photographed every cover for two decades. His studio is located in New York City at 64 Wooster Street but he often rents the studios at Pier59 in New York and
Smashbox StudiosSmashbox Studios is a premier photo and film studio in Los Angeles that regularly hosts photo shoots, film shoots, and events for photographers, producers and celebrities.-History:...
in Los Angeles.
Meisel has contributed photos for the covers of several popular albums and singles, including two RIAA Diamond-certified albums,
MadonnaMadonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
's 1984 album "
Like a VirginLike a Virgin is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released on November 12, 1984 by Sire Records. It was re-released worldwide in 1985, with the inclusion of the bonus track "Into the Groove". In 2001, Warner Bros. Records released a remastered version with two bonus...
" and
Mariah CareyMariah Carey is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She made her recording debut with the release of her eponymous studio album in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, whom she later married in 1993...
's 1995 album
Daydream. His work also can be seen on the cover of Madonna's single "Bad Girl" (a nude), the limited picture disc for Madonna's UK single release of "Fever" (a partial nude), and
Mariah CareyMariah Carey is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She made her recording debut with the release of her eponymous studio album in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, whom she later married in 1993...
's single "
Fantasy"Fantasy" is a song by American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey. It was released on September 12, 1995 by Columbia Records as the lead single for her fifth studio album, Daydream . The song was written by Carey and Dave Hall, both serving as primary producers alongside Sean Combs...
" (simply a different crop of the photo on the cover of the
Daydream album). He shot photos of Madonna for her greatest hits album
GHV2GHV2 is the second greatest hits compilation album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released on November 12, 2001, by Maverick Records and distributed by Warner Bros. Records. It contains the most popular songs from the 1990s up until 2001. It is the follow-up to the 1990 release, The...
.
Fashion campaigns
Amongst others, Meisel has shot campaigns for Versace,
ValentinoValentino SpA is a clothing company founded in 1959 by Valentino Garavani. Nowadays it is a part of Valentino Fashion Group. New creative directors Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli will take Alessandra Facchinetti's seat as creative designer...
,
Dolce & GabbanaDolce & Gabbana is an Italian luxury industry fashion house. The company was started by the Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana in Milan, Italy. By 2005 their turnover was €597 million....
and
Calvin KleinCalvin Richard Klein is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968. In addition to clothing, Klein has also given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and jewelry....
(for whom his campaigns were very controversial).
Meisel also shoots
PradaPrada S.p.A. is an Italian fashion label specializing in luxury goods for men and women , founded by Mario Prada.-Foundations:...
campaigns each season — having done so since 2004. In April 2008 he shot friend
MadonnaMadonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
for
Vanity Fair, and later in the year he shot her for the 2009 spring campaign by
Louis VuittonLouis Vuitton Malletier – commonly referred to as Louis Vuitton , or shortened to LV – is a French fashion house founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label is well known for its LV monogram, which is featured on most products, ranging from luxury trunks and leather goods to ready-to-wear, shoes,...
at
Splashlight's Skylight Studio.
He is a close friend of designer
Anna SuiAnna Sui is an American fashion designer. Her luxury brand retails globally in the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Her clothing, fragrance, cosmetic, and accessories lines sell at Anna Sui stores in over 50 countries and are also widely distributed at leading department stores...
for whom he also shot several campaigns, even though Sui rarely uses advertising to promote her clothing. He also works closely with digital artist
Pascal DanginPascal Dangin is a digital artist associated with retouching fashion photographs. He is the founder and chief executive of Box, a photo retouching business based in New York.-Early years:...
.
Influence
As one of the most powerful photographers in the fashion industry, Meisel is credited with "discovering" or promoting the careers of many successful models, including top models
Linda EvangelistaLinda Evangelista is a Canadian model. She has been featured on over 600 magazine covers and has garnered work on numerous modeling assignments with companies, most recently with L'Oréal.- Early years :...
,
Naomi CampbellNaomi Campbell is a British model. Scouted at the age of 15, she established herself among the top three most recognisable and in-demand models of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and she was one of six models of her generation declared "supermodels" by the fashion world...
,
Christy TurlingtonChristy Turlington Burns is an American model best known for representing Calvin Klein from 1987 to 2007. She has worked on dozens of modeling contracts with companies including Maybelline Cosmetics and Versace. Turlington starred in her fashion documentary Catwalk and Isaac Mizrahi's Unzipped...
,
Kristen McMenamyKristen McMenamy is an American model. She is known for her unconventional, androgynous appearance.-Career:Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, McMenamy's modeling career mainly spanned the years 1985 to 1998, when she worked for many of the world's top designers and international fashion houses...
,
Amber VallettaAmber Evangeline Valletta is an American actress and model. She began her career as a model for fashion agencies, and appeared on cover pages of internationally recognized magazines. She made her film debut in Drop Back Ten . She then starred in the hit film Hitch...
,
Iris StrubeggerIris Strubegger is an Austrian model.-Early life:Iris was born on July 21, 1984. Her birthplace is Schwarzach im Pongau, Salzburg in Austria. In 2001, when she was 17, she moved to New York to start a three month exchange student program. Walking down the street one day, she was discovered by an...
,
Lara StoneLara Catherina Stone is a Dutch model.On February 19, 2010, she was tabulated as the world's number-one fashion model on the international modelling site models.com's Top 50 Models Women ranking, a position she maintains as of November 2011...
,
Coco RochaCoco Rocha is a Canadian fashion model.- Personal life :Rocha was born in Toronto, Ontario, and moved to Richmond and attended McRoberts secondary school, British Columbia at a very young age. Her family is in the airline industry. Her mother, Juanita, is a flight attendant and her father, Trevor...
,
Caroline TrentiniCaroline Trentini , also known as Carol Trentini, is a Brazilian fashion model.- Early life :...
,
Liya KebedeLiya Kebede is an Ethiopian model, maternal health advocate, clothing designer and actress who has appeared three times on the cover of US Vogue . According to Forbes, Kebede was eleventh-highest-paid top model in the world in 2007...
,
Karen ElsonKaren Elson is a British model, singer-songwriter and guitarist.As a child, Elson attended North Chadderton School in Chadderton with her twin sister, filmmaker Kate Elson. She began working as a model as a teenager....
,
Doutzen Kroes, and Raquel Zimmerman, propelling them to fame by regularly featuring them in
Vogue and various campaigns, notably
PradaPrada S.p.A. is an Italian fashion label specializing in luxury goods for men and women , founded by Mario Prada.-Foundations:...
, considered one of the most desired campaigns in the business. Meisel's influence and training seems to also extend past models. He used his influence among the fashion elite to create an issue of
Vogue that would show only black models. The issue was released in July 2008 with the purpose of addressing the racism seen lately in fashion magazines, runways, and advertising campaigns. He also launched the career of Ross Van Der Heide, a young fashion designer, by showing Ross's artwork to Anna Sui.
He launched the careers of many models and persuaded British model
Karen ElsonKaren Elson is a British model, singer-songwriter and guitarist.As a child, Elson attended North Chadderton School in Chadderton with her twin sister, filmmaker Kate Elson. She began working as a model as a teenager....
to shave her eyebrows off which earned her the nickname 'Le Freak'
Meisel has been the force behind the careers of people he regularly used on his
Vogue shoots; hairstylists
Oribe CanalesOribe , Cuban-American born, Oribe Canales, is a "celebrity hairstylist". Oribe's combination of session, celebrity and salon work spans over three decades, and he has defined the notion of fashion over the course of a career of unprecedented longevity and scope.His collaborators include...
, Garren, Orlando Pita and
Guido PalauGuido Palau, is a British-born hair stylist, known as a leading trend setter in the fashion industry.-Early life:...
, and make-up artists François Nars,
Laura MercierLaura Mercier is a French make-up artist who has lent her name to a line of cosmetics.-External links:*...
,
Pat McGrathPat McGrath is a British make-up artist. She has been called the most influential make-up artist in the world by Vogue magazine and other commentators.-Biography:...
and the late
Kevyn AucoinKevyn Aucoin was an American make-up artist and photographer.-Early life:Aucoin was born in Shreveport, Louisiana and grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, to parents Isidore Adrian Aucoin and Thelma Suzanne Melancon, who adopted him as an infant through Catholic Charities of Alexandria, Louisiana He...
owe some of their success to the photographer.
Anna & Franca
Meisel has been a protégé of both
Franca SozzaniFranca Sozzani is an Italian journalist and the editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia since 1988.Franca has been at the forefront of Fashion since the beginning of her career. Sozzani started her career at Vogue Bambini and directed legendary publications LEI since 1980 and PER LUI since 1982 before...
and
Anna WintourAnna Wintour, OBE is the British-born editor-in-chief of American Vogue, a position she has held since 1988. With her trademark pageboy bob haircut and sunglasses, Wintour has become an institution throughout the fashion world, widely praised for her eye for fashion trends and her support for...
, editors-in-chief of Italian and American
Vogue, respectively. For the former, he photographs the cover of every issue, something generally unheard of in the ever changing fashion industry.
Meisel often creates layouts which are controversial, by juxtaposing fashion and politics and/or social standards. For example, in the September 2006 issue of
Vogue Italia, Meisel played with the concept of restricted liberties post-September 11 America, with the models portraying terrorists and highly trained policemen. It caused a stir in the press, as the models were presented in violent compositions where they could be seen as being victimized. It also elicited a negative response from feminists which saw the role of the women as being undermined by their male counterparts.
Artist Rep agency Art + Commerce represents Steven Meisel for image licensing and advertising.
Private Life
Meisel is openly gay.
Meisel is notorious for rarely giving interviews or being photographed. However, in one of few cases, he was interviewed by Ingrid Sischy for
Vogue Paris. The following year, Meisel agreed to be interviewed for
032c032c magazine is an English-language, bi-annual contemporary culture magazine that covers art, fashion, and politics. The magazine is published in Berlin....
magazine by Pierre-Alexandre de Looz. De Looz' piece, "Who is Steven Meisel?" was accompanied by a 14-page fold-out retrospective of Meisel's twenty years of covers for
Vogue Italia.
Album
Meisel is also one of very few famous photographers that does not have a proper book solely dedicated to his work. A book collecting some of his photographs called
Steven Meisel was published by German
teNeuesteNeues is a publishing company founded by Dr. Heinz teNeues in Krefeld, Germany, in 1931. It is a third generation family firm and one of the leading book publishers in the areas of photography, design, lifestyle, and travel...
Buchverlag in 2003 and sold out.
External links