de Meyer, Adolf

French (1868-1946)

BiographyFamed for his portraits of celebrities in the early 20th century, Adolf de Meyer became Vogue magazine’s first fashion photographer in 1913, transforming the field with his uniquely lit, dreamlike images. Dubbed by Cecil Beaton as “the Debussy of photography,” de Meyer would subsequently work for Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar, where he was chief photographer in Paris from 1922 to 1938. The preeminent fashion photographer of his time, de Meyer published in several issues of Alfred Stieglitz’s journal Camera Work, eventually joining Stieglitz’s Photo-Secession. Today, few of his prints survive, most having been destroyed during World War II.