Women - Hunterdon County, New Jersey

LOUISE DAHL-WOLFE
She flew all over the world, photographing the striking models in their beautiful
clothes for the pages and covers of the leading fashion magazines. Yet it was to their
home in the quiet country near Frenchtown that Louise Dahl-Wolfe returned between
assignments and to which she and her husband retired in the mid-70's.
The Wolfes met in North Africa where Meyer Wolfe, a painter and sculptor, was
working. In their more than 40 years of marriage, he designed many of the sets and
backgrounds that she used for her photographs. He recalled that "she had a special
feeling for color and would coordinate the clothes and the set background."
One of her first projects, "Tennessee Mountain Woman," was photographed near
the Great Smoky Mountains. It appeared in Vanity Fair magazine in 1933, and became
one of the most talked-about photographs of the year. Immediately after that, she went
to work for Saks Fifth Avenue, to show the store's latest fashions.
And for a different view, she photographed food for the Woman's Home Companion.
She found that one of her toughest assignments. "I had to climb up and down ladders
all day -- because you shoot down. Often the food had to be artificially glazed in order
to photograph properly."
From 1936 to 1958, she worked for Harper's Bazaar, photographing some of the
most famous models of the day. In addition, her portrait work included such celebrities
as Katherine Cornell, Paul Robeson, Senator John F. Kennedy, and Jacqueline Bouvier
who became Mrs. Kennedy.
In 1943, she did a photographic study of 17-year-old Betty Bacall, who became the
popular stage and screen star, Lauren Bacall. The friendship continued for the
remainder of Louise-Dahl Wolfe's life.
When she retired, Louise Dahl-Wolfe became an active member of the League of
Women Voters. She learned to sew her own clothes and began to learn bookbinding,
with the intention of presenting large albums of her photographs to the Fashion Institute
of Technology in New York as a history of fashion.
16
Louise Dahl-Wolfe
American, 1895-1989
Mrs. Ramsey, Gatlinburg, TN, 1933
Original title: Tennessee Mountain Woman
silverprint