The International Center of Photography presents “Yves Saint Laurent and Photography,” an exhibition that explores how the photographic image became central to the making of the house of Yves Saint Laurent over four decades.
Bringing together over 300 objects, including photographs by Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Guy Bourdin, Robert Doisneau, Horst P. Horst, William Klein, Annie Leibovitz, Steven Meisel, Duane Michals, Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, David Seidner, and Andy Warhol alongside archival materials, the exhibition showcases the wide range of materials produced through these collaborations. Organized in collaboration with the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris and the Fondation Pierre Bergé–Yves Saint Laurent, “Yves Saint Laurent and Photography” shows how the medium was used not just for promotion, but as a vital element in shaping identity, influence, and cultural discourse.
Curated by Simon Baker, Guest Curator and photography historian; Nastasia Alberti, Deputy Head of Collections and Head Archivist, Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris; and Clémentine Cuinet, Head of Photographic Collections, Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, “Yves Saint Laurent and Photography” considers the myriad ways that photographic images can shape the world around us, whether as art, marketing, documentation or the substance of memory. More broadly, the exhibition shows how the legacy of both a brand and its founder was cemented in large part through the photographic image.
Yves Saint Laurent himself maintained an active relationship with countless photographers, viewing the medium as a way to take risks in fashioning his identity and pushing the boundaries of what was deemed acceptable or relevant, particularly regarding gender roles and expectations. This inquiry is an extension of ICP’s longstanding mission to investigate how photography circulates in the world and to look at the history of photography to better understand how the medium can continue to impact contemporary life in urgent and democratic ways, while also demonstrating how fashion has been part of broader social and cultural change through gender presentation, marketing strategies, responses to youth movements, and globalization.
Divided into two sections, the first brings together portraits, fashion photographs, and more by photographers working in a wide variety of ways, chronologically tracing the evolution of Yves Saint Laurent’s creations and emblematic portraits of the couturier. From the striking portrait of Yves Saint Laurent by Irving Penn in 1957 to that of Patrick Demarchelier in 2004, from experimental images by William Klein in 1962 to those taken by Bettina Rheims backstage at runway shows in the 1980s, each image bears witness to an era. From immediately recognizable images to lesser-known ones, these photographs contributed to Yves Saint Laurent’s worldwide renown and have left a lasting impression on the collective imagination.
The second section retraces these same years through the presentation of more than 200 objects from the archives of the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris — contact sheets, advertising notebooks and campaign catalogs, press clippings, magazines, and personal photographs — which reveal the central role that photography played in the life of the couturier and in the history of his fashion house.
