Turbeville, Deborah 1937-

views updated

TURBEVILLE, Deborah 1937-

PERSONAL: Born July 6, 1937, in Medford, MA. Education: Studied photography in seminars with Richard Avedon and Marvin Israel.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—c/o Janice Goodman, attorney-at-law, 36 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036. Agent—Staley-Wise Gallery, 560 Broadway, New York, NY 10012. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Design assistant to Clair McCardell, New York, NY, 1956-58; Ladies' Home Journal, New York, NY, editorial assistant, 1960-62; Harper's Bazaar, New York, NY, fashion editor, 1962-65; Mademoiselle, New York, NY, associate fashion editor, 1967-71; freelance fashion photographer, New York, NY, Paris, France, 1972—. Exhibitions: Work included in Paul Walter Collection, New York, NY; Sam Wagstaff Collection, New York, NY; Bruno Bischoffberger, Zurich, Switzerland. Individual exhibitions include Camera-works, Beverly Hills, CA, 1976; Sonnabend Gallery, New York, NY, 1976, 1978; La Remise du Parc, Paris, France, 1982; Il Ponte, Rome, Italy, 1982; Parco Galleries, Tokyo, Japan, 1985; Staley-Wise Gallery, New York, NY, 1987, 1994.

AWARDS, HONORS: American Book Award, 1981, for Unseen Versailles.

WRITINGS:

and photographer

Maquillage, [New York, NY], 1975.

Wallflower, edited by Marvin Israel and Kate Morgan, Congreve (New York, NY), 1978.

Unseen Versailles, text by Louis Auchincloss, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1981.

Les Amoureuses du temps passe, [Paris, France], 1985.

Photographes contemporians I, [Paris, France], 1986.

Newport Remembered: A Photographic Portrait of a Gilded Past, text by Louis Auchincloss, Henry N. Abrams (New York, NY), 1994.

Studio St. Petersburg, Bullfinch Press (Boston, MA), 1997.

SIDELIGHTS: Fashion photographer Deborah Turbeville's photographs can be seen in magazines such as Vogue, Marie-Claire, and Viva, but they are unlike most fashion photographs. Turbeville's photographs are of women in locations such as abandoned homes, warehouses, and building ruins, shot in natural light, not on well-lit studios. "Her care in choice of model, location, staging, camera, lens, and printing all contribute to her view of the anxious isolation of even the most beautiful of women placed in a disquieting time," noted a contributor in Contemporary Photographers.

Deborah Turbeville's Newport Remembered is a collection of Turbeville's photographs, some with models wearing nineteenth-century clothes, of Newport, Rhode Island's mansions and landscapes. Her photographs, along with an introduction by Louis Auchincloss, give the history of the city. Booklist contributor Raul Nino commented that the photographs, "hauntingly, beautifully conjure the past."