Peter Lindbergh: The fashion photographer who ushered in honest beauty

‘It should be the responsibility of photographers today to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection.’ Sarah Young remembers the master of the lens

Photographer Peter Lindbergh discusses timeless beauty in a 2016 Armani interview (Getty)

Airbrushed, impossibly flawless images of models in stiff, unnatural poses were once the USP of fashion shoots. Rifling through the pages of our favourite issues of glossy magazines, our eyes would meet those of other-worldly creatures, almost plastic in their perfection. And while such imagery can certainly still be found within the field of fashion photography, more often than not, modern shoots boast a dynamism and an excitement that would fool us into believing that we, too, could be the women in the pictures.

This stark departure from the rigid magazine standards of contrived beauty was largely the result of one man, who spent his entire career working to provide a welcome antidote. Peter Lindbergh, the influential fashion photographer who died on Tuesday at the age of 74, was a staunch critic of airbrushing and the selfie culture of today. Recognised as one of the most prolific photographers of his generation, Lindbergh’s career spanned almost 50 years and saw him work with countless fashion designers, supermodels, internationally renowned magazines and royalty.

His life was one spent capturing the personalities of women rather than the status symbol they embodied. “Most of the fashion-related media prefer to take away the identity and experiences of their protagonists – your poetry and all the small imperfections, the signs of your own life supposed to be there to tell your story – and replace it with senseless perfection,” Lindbergh once said.

The news of Lindbergh’s passing was announced on the photographer’s official Instagram account on Wednesday morning alongside one of his black and white photographs. “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Peter Lindbergh on 3 September 2019, at the age of 74,” the caption read. “He is survived by his wife Petra, his first wife Astrid, his four sons Benjamin, Jérémy, Simon, Joseph and seven grandchildren. He leaves a big void.”

Born in Lissa of Nazi-occupied Poland in 1944, Lindbergh spent his childhood in Duisburg before working as a window dresser for a local department store and enrolling at the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts in the early 1960s. While his fellow students at the academy spent their time painting portraits, Lindbergh flouted convention, instead choosing to follow in the footsteps of his idol, Vincent van Gogh, by hitchhiking all the way to Arles, before temporarily relocating to Spain and north Africa.

After spending two years assisting German photographer Hans Lux, Lindbergh found his calling as a photographer and opened his own photography studio in 1971, joining the Stern magazine family alongside the likes of contemporary creatives Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton.

He really did capture the natural beauty within each of his subjects who sat for him, almost like they were in suspended animation

Alex Longmore

Unlike much of the fashion photography of the time, which was often excessively retouched, Lindbergh became known for his humanist approach through which he challenged and redefined traditional beauty standards by asking his models to wear little-to-no makeup and have “the guts” to be themselves. “This should be the responsibility of photographers today to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection,” he once said.

It was this refusal to bow to the glossy perfection associated with fashion publications that really propelled Lindbergh to notoriety. “As he often stated, his intention was to show ‘real women’, untouched and un-photoshopped and his shots suggest an artless lack of styling, while achieving an emotional intensity through dramatic use of chiaroscuro and abstracted contexts,” says Dr Harriet Atkinson, fashion historian and professor at the University of Brighton.

Alex Longmore, celebrity stylist, agrees, adding that Lindbergh became as adored for his fashion photography as he did his moving and emotive portraiture. “Favouring black and white imagery over colour, he really did capture the natural beauty within each of his subjects who sat for him, almost like they were in suspended animation,” she explains.

Lindbergh’s instantly recognisable style saw him capture intimate and unpolished portraits of some of the industry’s biggest stars, with everyone from Kate Moss and Gigi Hadid to the Duchess of Sussex posing for him in the space of his long career.

However, the photographer was perhaps best known for his iconic Vogue covers, including the January 1990 issue of British Vogue that saw supermodels Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Tatjana Patitz, Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington pose together for the very first time. The image went on to become known as “the birth certificate of the supers” and sealed Lindbergh’s status as a revolutionary in his field.

According to Lisa Lockwood, news director at WWD, Lindbergh’s work appeared to mark the beginning of the era of the celebrity supermodel while simultaneously redefining the image of the contemporary woman. “Peter Lindbergh’s photographs reflected the time we live in and were more about who the women were, as opposed to what they were wearing,” she reflects

“His images had a truthfulness to them and he seemed to have an affinity for the understated and non-glossy that permeated his work.”

This sentiment persisted through the years, culminating in his most recent cover for British Vogue which came out just last month. Lindbergh was selected by Meghan Markle, who guest edited the September issue, to photograph 15 trailblazers, including Hollywood stars such as Salma Hayek and Jane Fonda, climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg and New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Arden.

At the time, Lindbergh explained that the word “natural” was the key message behind the shoot, telling British Vogue: “I hate retouching, I hate make-up. The number of beautiful women who have asked me to lengthen their legs or move their eyes further apart… you would not believe,” he added. “It’s a culture of madness.”

Aside from Vogue, Lindbergh worked with some of the most prestigious fashion brands and magazines since the late 1970’s, including Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Dior and Prada. He was also commissioned to shoot the iconic Pirelli calendar on three occasions in 1996, 2002 and 2017, making him the only photographer in the calendar’s 50-year history to do so.

In 2017, he photographed a number of stars for Pirelli using barely any makeup or styling, stating that he hoped to “remind everyone that there’s a beauty that’s more real and truthful and not manipulated by commercial or any other interests. Beauty speaks about individuality, courage to be yourself, and your very own sensibility – that’s my definition of a woman today,” he said at a press conference at the time. “That’s the goal of the calendar – to the show the woman. And not this stretched, manipulated, emptied [person] you see in the magazines today.”

Today, much of Lindbergh’s work can be seen lining the walls of prestigious museums and galleries, including the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Pimpidou in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. And, while the photographer became best known for his simple and revealing portraits, he also immersed himself into other creative ventures such as motion pictures.

Lindbergh also directed a number of critically acclaimed films and documentaries throughout his career, including Models, The Film (1991) and Inner Voices (1999) which won the Best Documentary Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2000.

The passing of the influential photographer has been observed by a number of celebrities who have worked with and admired Lindbergh throughout his career. Upon receiving the news, Edward Enninful, British Vogue editor-in-chief, said: “Peter Lindbergh was both a visionary photographer and a dear friend. His ability to see real beauty in people, and the world, was ceaseless, and will live on through the images he created. He will be missed by everyone who knew him, worked with him or loved one of his pictures.”

Meghan Markle, who worked with Lindbergh on several occasions including for her Vanity Fair cover in 2017, paid tribute to the photographer on Instagram. Alongside a black-and-white photograph of the pair embracing, the caption read: “The Duchess of Sussex had worked with Peter in the past and personally chose him to shoot the 15 women on the cover for the September issue of British Vogue, which she guest edited. There is no other photographer she considered to bring this meaningful project to life. Forces for Change was the one of the esteemed photographer’s final published projects. He will be deeply missed.”

In an age seemingly defined by deceptive and often problematic imagery, Lindbergh’s approach to photography felt like a breath of fresh air, perhaps more so today more than ever before. So much so, that the impact of his remarkable and boundary-pushing photography promises to serve as an inspiration for many years to come.