A little background.............
Louise Dahl grew up and went to art school in San Francisco. In her early 20's she visited the studio of Anne Brigman who had been one of the photographers associated with Stieglitz and Camera Work, and was an immediate convert to photography.
Following training as an interior decorator she took time off for a trip to Europe and North Africa, where she met American painter Meyer (Mike) Wolfe who she later married, becoming Louise Dahl-Wolfe.
On her return to San Francisco she took up photography more seriously, helped by contacts with other Californian photographers including
Dorothea Lange and
Edward Weston. When she and Mike moved to New York she got a magazine job as a food photographer, and some of her portraits were published by
Vanity Fair. It was working for
Harper's Bazaar for many years as their leading fashion photographer that made her famous. In her work she worked with all the famous figures of the day, including photographer
Edward Steichen, art director Alexey Brodovitch, editor Carmel Snow and fashion editor Diana Vreeland.
Dahl-Wolfe remained a leading fashion photographer until her retirement at the end of the 1950s, when things began to change. She worked at a time when photographers were expected to produce ideas - she '
was never told what to do with a photograph, and Alexy Brodovitch never came to my studio on a sitting'.
Her work was a great influence on all fashion
, not least on
Irving Penn and
Richard Avedon. She was also a very fine portrait photographer.
http://photography.about.com/library/dop/bldop_ldahl-.htm
