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EDNOTE. Horst Tappe pictures of Nabokov have been touring the States for some
months. Keep an eye out for them.
----- Forwarded message from Mvoscol@aol.com -----
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 07:23:21 EDT
From: Mvoscol@aol.com
Reply-To: Mvoscol@aol.com
Subject: Horst Tappe
To:
The Times (of London)
Obituaries
September 06, 2005
Horst Tappe
May 13, 1938 - August 21, 2005
Photographer whose portraits of artists and writers were an extension of
his love of painting and literature
VLADIMIR NABOKOV in knee-breeches, butterfly net at the ready; Ian
Fleming, drawing languidly on a cigarette; Noël Coward, framed by angel?s
wings:
three of the 20th century?s most celebrated writers, and a trio of enduring
images, all taken by the German photographer Horst Tappe.
Even before Tappe finished his studies in 1965, he had decided to specialise
in portraits of writers and artists (his British equivalent perhaps being
Mark Gerson). It was a line of work that was essentially an extension of his
love of painting and literature.
His first subject was Jean Giono, but his decision to settle in Switzerland
brought him close to the two other expatriates with whom he would become
most associated, Nabokov and Oskar Kokoschka.
His photographs of the artist are neither formal pictures nor do they focus
on him at work. Instead Tappe was given licence to chronicle the rest of his
daily life, being helped by Kokoschka?s own interest in photography. He
recorded the painter at ease in his garden at Villeneuve and in conversation
with
his house guest, Ezra Pound.
Tappe also accompanied him to the hanging of an exhibition of Kokoschka?s
work at the Tate, and captured him strolling in Hyde Park.
He first met Nabokov in Montreux in 1962, and photographed him regularly
until the writer?s death in 1977. In common with his studies of Kokoschka, his
pictures reveal another side of Nabokov, not so much his intellectual side as
his (no less important) playful one, notably in pursuit of Lepidoptera.
Nevertheless, Tappe was no stranger to the more conventional portrait.
Shooting invariably in black and white, his archive of 5,000 images contains a
who?
s who of postwar European and American high culture. He photographed a
dozen Nobel Prize-winning writers, including Saul Bellow, Elias Canetti, Wole
Soyinka and T. S. Eliot.
The old guard was represented by Ernst Junger, Somerset Maugham, Eric Ambler
and Coward (whose photograph was used on a postage stamp) the young Turks
by Harold Pinter, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and William Boyd. From Czeslaw
Milosz to Imre Kertész, there was almost no writer with whom Tappe was not on
first-name terms.
Horst Tappe was born in Westphalia, Germany, in 1938. There he began to
study photography, being influenced initially by the Bauhaus. Afterwards he
took
lessons at Frankfurt and Hamburg, before completing his master?s degree at
Vevey, in Switzerland. He made his home in Montreux, although he frequently
spent time in London, Paris and Berlin.
Tappe?s other subjects included Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Patricia
Highsmith, Isabel Allende, Gabriel García Márquez and Anthony Burgess. His work
always lent dignity to the sitter without being restrained by politeness. His
is not a probing lens, but it was one that invited the famous to reveal what
they would to the mirror. The pictures demonstrate a sympathetic curiosity,
not one that sought the sensational, merely the essential.
He published books of photographs of Pound and W. H. Auden, as well as
collections of his portraits of Nabokov and Kokoschka. A retrospective of the
former was exhibited earlier this year in New York, while the latter are on
show
until October in Montreux.
Tappe died in Vevey. He had been suffering from cancer for some time. He was
unmarried.
Horst Tappe, photographer, was born on
----- End forwarded message -----
months. Keep an eye out for them.
----- Forwarded message from Mvoscol@aol.com -----
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 07:23:21 EDT
From: Mvoscol@aol.com
Reply-To: Mvoscol@aol.com
Subject: Horst Tappe
To:
The Times (of London)
Obituaries
September 06, 2005
Horst Tappe
May 13, 1938 - August 21, 2005
Photographer whose portraits of artists and writers were an extension of
his love of painting and literature
VLADIMIR NABOKOV in knee-breeches, butterfly net at the ready; Ian
Fleming, drawing languidly on a cigarette; Noël Coward, framed by angel?s
wings:
three of the 20th century?s most celebrated writers, and a trio of enduring
images, all taken by the German photographer Horst Tappe.
Even before Tappe finished his studies in 1965, he had decided to specialise
in portraits of writers and artists (his British equivalent perhaps being
Mark Gerson). It was a line of work that was essentially an extension of his
love of painting and literature.
His first subject was Jean Giono, but his decision to settle in Switzerland
brought him close to the two other expatriates with whom he would become
most associated, Nabokov and Oskar Kokoschka.
His photographs of the artist are neither formal pictures nor do they focus
on him at work. Instead Tappe was given licence to chronicle the rest of his
daily life, being helped by Kokoschka?s own interest in photography. He
recorded the painter at ease in his garden at Villeneuve and in conversation
with
his house guest, Ezra Pound.
Tappe also accompanied him to the hanging of an exhibition of Kokoschka?s
work at the Tate, and captured him strolling in Hyde Park.
He first met Nabokov in Montreux in 1962, and photographed him regularly
until the writer?s death in 1977. In common with his studies of Kokoschka, his
pictures reveal another side of Nabokov, not so much his intellectual side as
his (no less important) playful one, notably in pursuit of Lepidoptera.
Nevertheless, Tappe was no stranger to the more conventional portrait.
Shooting invariably in black and white, his archive of 5,000 images contains a
who?
s who of postwar European and American high culture. He photographed a
dozen Nobel Prize-winning writers, including Saul Bellow, Elias Canetti, Wole
Soyinka and T. S. Eliot.
The old guard was represented by Ernst Junger, Somerset Maugham, Eric Ambler
and Coward (whose photograph was used on a postage stamp) the young Turks
by Harold Pinter, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and William Boyd. From Czeslaw
Milosz to Imre Kertész, there was almost no writer with whom Tappe was not on
first-name terms.
Horst Tappe was born in Westphalia, Germany, in 1938. There he began to
study photography, being influenced initially by the Bauhaus. Afterwards he
took
lessons at Frankfurt and Hamburg, before completing his master?s degree at
Vevey, in Switzerland. He made his home in Montreux, although he frequently
spent time in London, Paris and Berlin.
Tappe?s other subjects included Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Patricia
Highsmith, Isabel Allende, Gabriel García Márquez and Anthony Burgess. His work
always lent dignity to the sitter without being restrained by politeness. His
is not a probing lens, but it was one that invited the famous to reveal what
they would to the mirror. The pictures demonstrate a sympathetic curiosity,
not one that sought the sensational, merely the essential.
He published books of photographs of Pound and W. H. Auden, as well as
collections of his portraits of Nabokov and Kokoschka. A retrospective of the
former was exhibited earlier this year in New York, while the latter are on
show
until October in Montreux.
Tappe died in Vevey. He had been suffering from cancer for some time. He was
unmarried.
Horst Tappe, photographer, was born on
----- End forwarded message -----