Clifford Coffin

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Clifford Coffin (born June 18, 1913 near Salem , Illinois , † March 2, 1972 in Pasadena , California ) was an American photographer .

life and work

Coffin's father was a sales representative; with him he made formative trips to Paris and Rome. After graduating from Pasadena High School, he attended courses at the Art Institute of Chicago , but then, at his father's insistence, studied business administration at the University of California, Los Angeles . Nadh various jobs as a night porter and accountant, he moved to New York City in 1938 and worked in finance at Texaco. Under the influence of contemporary magazines such as Vogue , he turned himself to photography. He was in contact with Alexander Liberman and received his first orders around 1940; at the same time he attended evening classes with George Platt Lynes . In February 1946 he moved to Europe, initially to live in London. From 1948 he worked as a photographer for the fashion magazine Vogue. In 1949 he returned to New York. In 1954, his fashion photography was recognized by the Art Directors Club . In addition to fashion photography, he also took portraits, including a. by Christian Dior , Jean Marais and Arthur Miller . Increasing drug problems led to the withdrawal from photography; In 1965 his archive was lost in a fire. Most recently he lived in Pasadena, where he died of throat cancer in 1972. Posthumously there was a solo exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum in 1991 and a retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery in 1997 .

During his lifetime, his name remained unknown outside the narrow circle of the fashion world, although his work was widely circulated through the magazine. It was only posthumously that he was recognized as one of the most important fashion photographers of the 20th century. He is known for his photograph of four bathing ladies from the rear, each with different colored bathing caps, in a desert landscape from June 1949.

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personal data
SURNAME Coffin, Clifford
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American photographer
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Salem , Illinois , USA
DATE OF DEATH March 2nd 1972
Place of death Pasadena , California , USA