Wilhelm "Willy" Maywald (15 August 1907 – 21 May 1985) was a German photographer who was best known for his

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this ...

and

fashion photography Fashion photography is a genre of photography which is devoted to displaying clothing and other fashion items, sometimes haute couture. It typically consists of a fashion photographer taking a picture of a dressed model in a photographic studi ...

Early life and education

Maywald was born on August 15, 1907 in

Kleve Kleve (; traditional en, Cleves ; nl, Kleef; french: Clèves; es, Cléveris; la, Clivia; Low Rhenish: ''Kleff'') is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century ...

, German Empire (present day Germany) to a family of hoteliers. He grew up becoming interested in the aesthetics of art. Maywald studied at the Technical Schools of Art in

Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; li, Krieëvel ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, i ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

and Berlin. His wide range of education was what let him be the

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

artist that he was.

Career

After school, Maywald returned to this hometown in 1931 but soon realized that the city was too small for the career he wanted for himself. He then moved to Paris where he began his career of photo reporting and befriending other modern artists. He chose to live a bohemian lifestyle and photographed various subjects such as artists, dancers, fashion, etc. Maywald photographed the qualities of living in France with his camera. He became an assistant to

Harry Meerson Harry Ossip Meerson (27 February 1910 – 7 May 1991) was a French photographer. Harry Ossip Meerson was born in Warsaw, Poland in either 1910 or 1911. His elder brother Lazare Meerson Lazare Meerson (1900–1938) was a Russian-born cinema ar ...

who was a Polish photographer and started to learn from Meerson how to make a living from photography. Maywald moved to Switzerland in 1942 and was held captive in camps for foreigners. In the year of 1943 he was allowed to start working again in

portrait photography Portrait photography, or portraiture, is a type of photography aimed toward capturing the personality of a person or group of people by using effective lighting, backdrops, and poses. A portrait photograph may be artistic or clinical. Frequentl ...

as a self-employed artist. Maywald was very well known for his black and white photography and stunning lighting. When he moved back to Paris in August 1946 he mainly focused on

fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fash ...

and

celebrity photography Celebrity photography is a subset of photojournalism where the subjects are celebrities in the arts, sports and sometimes politics. There are three main types of celebrity photographs used by magazines and newspapers: event photography, celebrity p ...

. He photographed for various fashion designers and his images were recognized internationally. Maywald was known for photographing in unique scenes. He was one of the first fashion photographers to photograph his subjects in the streets of Paris. He had a way of photographing his subjects in these various places but the image still focused on the model/clothing. He became

Christian Dior Christian Ernest Dior (; 21 January 1905 – 24 October 1957) was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Christian Dior SE, which is now owned by parent company LVMH. His fashion houses a ...

’s elite photographer. Maywald photographed the well-known designers creations and his photographs were featured on the cover of several magazines including

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine ** ''Vogue China'', ...

and

Vanity Fair Vanity Fair may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Literature * Vanity Fair, a location in ''The Pilgrim's Progress'' (1678), by John Bunyan * ''Vanity Fair'' (novel), 1848, by William Makepeace Thackeray * ''Vanity Fair'' (magazines), the ...

. Although Maywald was the main photographer for

Dior Christian Dior SE (), commonly known as Dior (stylized DIOR), is a French luxury fashion house controlled and chaired by French businessman Bernard Arnault, who also heads LVMH, the world's largest luxury group. Dior itself holds 42.36% shar ...

, he also photographed for several other fashion designers at the time. Although photographing fashion, he produced images of celebrities as well. These celebrities ranged from artists to movie stars to athletes:

Tamara de Lempicka Tamara Łempicka (born Tamara Rosalia Gurwik-Górska; 16 May 1898 – 18 March 1980), better known as Tamara de Lempicka, was a Polish painter who spent her working life in France and the United States. She is best known for her polished Art De ...

Hans Arp Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter, and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist. Early life Arp was born in Straßburg (now Str ...

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Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

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and

Maurice Utrillo Maurice Utrillo (), born Maurice Valadon; 26 December 1883 – 5 November 1955), was a French painter of the School of Paris who specialized in cityscapes. Born in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painte ...

. Maywald retired in 1968, and died in 1985 in Paris.

Publications

Maywald, Willy. Die Splitter Des Spiegels: Eine Illustrierte Autobiographie. German ed. Schirmer/Mosel, 1985. 292. Print

Selected exhibitions

* Willy Maywald, Photographer and cosmopolitan. Portrait, fashion, and reportage, Berlin, 2015 * Willy Maywald, Hommage aux Chapeaux 1936–1968 at the Atelier-Musee du Chapeau, 2013 * Willy Maywald, Portrait of Le Corbusier, 1948 at the Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York City, 2006

References

External links

* Sykora, Katharina. ''Willy Maywald: Photographer and Cosmopolitan: Portraits, Fashion, Repo''. Kerber Verlag, 2015. 334. Print.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maywald, Willy 1907 births 1985 deaths Photographers from North Rhine-Westphalia French photographers 20th-century French photographers People from Kleve Fashion photographers Portrait photographers