Clifford Coffin: Photographs from Vogue, 1945 to 1955

American photographer Clifford Coffin (1913-1972) is considered by many who knew him as the greatest of Vogue's "lost" photographers - an artist far ahead of his time. His innovative and intriguing fashion photographs of the 1940s and 1950s for such renowned magazines as Glamour, Vogue and Jardin des Modes in New York, London and Paris challenged the standards of the day. Now, published to coincide with a retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery in London, comes the first extensive monograph of this artist's ingenious photographic work. Clifford Coffin: Photographs from Vogue 1945 to 1955 features a rare collection of over 100 full-color and duotone plates - including many images that were locked away in the library annex of British Vogue for over forty years. Comprehensive in its coverage, this book chronicles Coffin's incredible range of style, from his early romanticism and surrealism to the cool, contrived elegance that eventually characterized fashion photography in the 1950s. Also present are Coffin's magnificent portraits of leading figures in the literary, artistic and theatrical circles of the era, including a youthful Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Lucian Freud, Vivien Leigh, Richard Attenborough and Laurence Olivier, as well as his celebrated portraits of Christian Dior taken on the eve of the couturier's first collection, and Henri Matisse, shown late in life, working in bed on his paper cut-outs. Many of his portraits feature famous people actually wearing the clothes of designers like Jean Despres, Schiaparelli, Fath, Dior, Balenciaga, Cartier, Lanvin and Molyneux. In addition to Coffin's photographs, editor Robin Muir's meticulous research finallyreveals the story of this fascinating man, whose life up until now has remained a mystery.