Gösta Peterson

Gösta Peterson’s work has been described as groundbreaking and pioneering, and has been rated in the same category as Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. He found himself becoming restless "hanging over a drafting table" all day. He would often photograph lavishly dressed models in "mundane, vulgar settings". His work is noted for its staging and composition; he often used humorous or dramatic scenarios to convey the image and pioneered "a more informal, personal approach to fashion photography". He also devised special effects, such as photographing with the shutter open while "drawing" on and around his subject with a strobe light. Peterson thrived in the atmosphere of freedom prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s, when photographers and art directors were far more experimental. Roger Schoening, Art Director for Mademoiselle from 1961 to 1978, and for Vogue from 1979 to 1988, remarked, "I never send Gus out on a job that I don’t wonder what he’s going to come back with. Is he going to give me fashion pictures or a W.P.A. portfolio?...I can never get a simple fashion picture from him. It always looks like it belongs in an art gallery." With few exceptions, Peterson insisted on shooting real people with quirks and personality in place of trained fashion models, rejecting an assignment from Alexander Liberman at Vogue who would not grant him that freedom. Peterson said, "I was famous--or notorious--for finding girls who didn't look like fashion models." As he explained, "There’s nothing worse than an over-trained model who’s lost all sense of her body’s personality." "Gösta Peterson preferred to come to a fashion sitting without any preconceptions.... and while many successful young fashion photographers today appear to be indebted to the casual, ‘snapshot’ element of his work, few apply it with his integrity," said Martin Harrison, author of Fashion Photography Since 1945, p. 182 (Rizzoli, 1991). Gösta Peterson was the first photographer to photograph British model Twiggy in America when she arrived in New York City in April 1967. In summer 1967, a fledgling African-American model named Naomi Sims telephoned Peterson and made an appointment to visit his studio. She had never been photographed for publication and had previously done only a single test shoot with John Vidol. After a brief meeting, Peterson sent Sims to The New York Times offices to meet his wife, Patricia. On the spot, she booked Sims for a shoot for an upcoming issue of The New York Times for the following Tuesday. Peterson’s photograph of Naomi Sims made the cover of the August 27, 1967 Fashions of the Times, the Sunday supplement to The New York Times. The photo made fashion history for being the first cover of a major fashion magazine with mixed-race readership to feature an identifiably Black model. Peterson launched the careers of other Black models, such as Barbara Summers, and his work was featured in the first issue of Essence. Apart from his fashion work, he also photographed artists and musicians such as Salvador Dalí, Duke Ellington, and Charles Mingus.

• April 13-June 29, 2023: Gösta Peterson Photographs 1960s-1970s, Deborah Bell Photographs, New York City (solo exhibition) • October 8, 2022 – February 12, 2023: A Personal View of High Fashion & Street Style, Photographs from the Nicola Erni Collection 1930s to Now, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida (group exhibition) • In January 2015: From The Archive, Turn Gallery, New York City (solo exhibition) • May 6-August 9, 2009: The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion, The Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City (group exhibition) • March–April 2008: Presumed Innocence: Photographic Perspectives of Children, DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts (group exhibition) • October 18-November 30, 1986: Dagsländor, Fotografiska Museet i Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden (solo exhibition) Peterson's photographs are held in museum collections worldwide, including the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA; and private collections such as The James Moores Collection, Liverpool, England (formerly Pulsynetic, London).

Gösta Peterson is the recipient of multiple awards, including: • 1963: 42nd Annual National Exhibition of Advertising and Editorial Art and Design of the New York Art Directors Club • 1979: The Art Directors Club 58th Annual Exhibition Merit Awards for his photographs for Ralph Lauren and Chloe • 1980: The Art Directors Club 58th Annual Exhibition Merit Awards for his photographs for "Fox" • 1981: Award of Excellence CA-81, 22nd Annual Exhibition Sponsored by Communication Arts Magazine -- Consumer Magazine Ad Campaign (Ruth Scharf, client / DBA Group Two, agency) • 1982: The Certificate of Excellence for the exhibition Communication Graphics 1982 Awarded by the American Institute of Graphic Arts • 1983: Award of Excellence CA-83, 24th Annual Exhibition Sponsored by Communication Arts Magazine -- Consumer Magazine Ad Campaign (AT&T Communications, client / NW Ayer Inc., agency)