Enduring Elegance: A Sumptuous Exhibition Highlights the Work of VF Photographer David Seidner

At last, David Seidner is being honored with a proper one-man retrospective. The late portraitist and fashion photographer was known for his lush and meticulously composed images, many of them reminiscent of 19th-century paintings. His work often graced the pages of Vanity Fair, most notably his neoclassical studies of society figures like the Miller sisters; his images of celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and her mother, the actor Blythe Danner; and his epic VF portfolio that featured 18 descendants of artist John Singer Sargent’s former subjects—including actor Helena Bonham Carter and journalist Anderson Cooper—photographed as Sargent might have rendered them on canvas 100 years before.

Not long after Seidner’s 1999 death from AIDS-related illness, his body of work was acquired by New York’s International Center of Photography. Now, as the institution celebrates its 50th anniversary, Elisabeth Sherman, ICP’s senior curator and director of exhibitions and collections, has mounted a sumptuous, definitive show, on view through early May, encompassing a career that boldly strode among the worlds of fashion, portraiture, fine art, still life, and experimental photography, always with an appreciation of subjects’ outward elegance—and inner beauty.

Herewith, selections from the exhibition, “David Seidner: Fragments, 1977–99,” and ICP’s permanent collection.