Autumn/Winter 2022

Above: The ‘Pictorialism’ section at ‘Fotografe’. Photos by Julia Margaret Cameron, authored from 1865 to 1870, Alinari Archives, Florence, (Image: Olga Makarova).
Cindy Sherman… Her biography is fascinating;
she received her first camera later in life in 1863
– as a 48-year-old woman, not a young girl, and
she became famous almost immediately. She
exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum
in 1865 – then called the South Kensington
Museum – which purchased 80 of her prints,
as one of the museum’s first acquisitions. In
fact, for two years, her photography studio was
actually inside the Museum!
A GAME OF ‘WHO’S WHO?’
Madame d’Ora’s 1926 portrait, Madame
Schiaparelli, featuring Roman fashion designer
Elsa Schiaparelli and her dog, epitomises the
typical cannons of the period, which were still
significantly influenced by Pictorialism. She is
almost blurred… only her gaze is in focus. This
technique gives the picture a timeless quality.
Schiaparelli (1890–1973) was a rival of Coco Chanel
and she took the fashion world by storm, in the
inter-war period, with her surrealist creations
[and the invention of the shade ‘shocking pink’ in
1937, a colour borrowed, years later, for Marilyn’s
strapless number in Gentleman Prefer Blondes.
Despite her sedate appearance in Madame
D’Ora’s photograph, Schiaparelli, created cuttingedge,
mostly surrealist garments and accessories,
Autumn / Winter 2022 • Restoration Conversations 9