Deborah Turbeville
Deborah Turbeville is an internationally acknowledged photographer whose innovative and distinctive style changed fashion photography during the 1960s and 70s.
She was born in Massachusetts and grew up in New England. At the age of 20 she moved to New York, working first as a model for the designer Claire McCardell, then as a fashion editor for the magazines Harper’s Bazaar and Mademoiselle. Deborah quickly understood that she was more passionate about the photographs than the writing itself. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Deborah was encouraged by her colleague, the photographer Richard Avedon (1923-2004), to trust her intuition, and despite this not going too well in the beginning, she has since dedicated herself whole heartedly to photographic art.
In a world full of pictures, Deborah has miraculously managed to distinguish herself from the crowd due to her originality. She took pictures in a way that nobody else had done before her. By placing delicate models dressed in haute couture creations in old, tatty rooms with high ceilings and using just natural light and broken mirrors, she created photographs that exemplify decay, destruction and imperfection. By adding graininess and dust to her original black and white pictures, she achieved a sort of ‘second-hand’ effect, and long before the ’shabby chic’ trend was discovered!
Deborah’s photos are characterized by a type of ambiguity between the past, present and future, in addition to a dose of poetry. It is said that she once did a job where all the pictures were overexposed. Nevertheless, she delivered the pictures to her customers and persuaded them that this was the way they were meant to look; this was her mode of expression. She has since become known for overexposed pictures that approach burn-out in the highlights.
Deborah’s work is regularly featured in the New York Times Magazine, and in publications such as the American, British, French, Italian and Russian editions of Vogue. She has exhibited in a range of galleries and museums, both in the US and abroad. Today she commutes between New York, Mexico and St. Petersburg; the latter being the city that inspires her the most. “I love to photograph in old construction sites, around things that are ruined, and in old weather-beaten Eastern European cities such as Krakow and Budapest.”
In 1989 Deborah’s distinguished and evocative style won her the Fashion Group Lifetime Award. In 1998 she received an Alfred Eisenstadt Award for Magazine Photography, and in 2002 she was awarded a Fulbright Stipend for her lectures at the Baltic School of Photography in St. Petersburg.
In 2005 Deborah began holding a series of inspiring lectures at the Smolney Institute in St. Petersburg. However, two years later she stopped teaching in order to spend time travelling across Europe. This resulted in delightful photographs of people and places captured in a way that only Deborah knows how. Her work charms and appeals to a steadily larger audience. Young artists seek her out for guidance, advice and knowledge, to find inspiration and to learn more about her youthful way of visualising the world and people’s lives. Deborah’s ability to create and communicate stories is unique. She is now 73 years of age, but seems as unaffected by time as her work is. Her photographs from many years ago retain an enduring appeal and relevance.
NB: This lecture will be held in English.
PRICE: NOK 280
PLACE: Caroline Cinema - Two talks
WHEN: Wednesday May 4, at 04:30 pm / Thursday May 5, at 04:00 pm
Born in 1938 in Massachusetts
Her editorial work appears regularly in publications as American, British, French, Italian and Russian Vogue.
Photographic essays
"Patzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico" (Casa, July 2004)
"Russian Soul" (Harper's Bazaar, December 2004)
"Julia Roberts" (The New York Times Magazine, 14 November 2004)
“Ritual Fashion” (Black Book, December 2004/January 2005)
Selected books
2010: Nostalgia
2009: Casa No Name
2009: Past Imperfect
1997: Studio St. Petersburg
1994: Newport Remembered; A photographic Portrait of a Gilded Past
1987: Les Amoureuses Du Temps Passe; photographs by Deborah Turbeville
1981: Unseen Versailles
Deborah’s photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums all over the world.
Selected awards
2002: Fulbright scholarship
1998: Alfred Eisenstaedt Award
1989 Fashion Group Lifetime Award