Favourite Photograph #55

From the late 1940's through the mid-70's, Mr. Faurer worked as a fashion photographer, producing images first for Junior Bazaar, then for magazines like Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and Flair. But most of his fashion prints and negatives were probably thrown away, Ms. Bell said. Before leaving on one of his trips to Paris in the late 1960's or early 70's, she said, Mr. Faurer had left that body of work with an acquaintance in New York. When he returned to the city, he was repeatedly told to retrieve his things or they would be thrown out. Mr. Faurer never picked them up.

- Margarett Loke (The New York Times)


Louis Faurer: Bowing for the Collections, French Vogue, 1973

Louis Fourer was born on August 28, 1916 in Philadelphia. “Faurer,” a misspelling of his last name at school, became legal by the time he graduated. He attended Philadelphia’s School of Commercial Art and Lettering from 1937 to 1940. Faurer started photographing in Philadelphia when he bought first camera in 1937. Winning a weekly photography contest in the Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger a few months later convinced him to pursue photography as a career. He served as a civilian photographic technician for the U. S. Army Signal Corps in Philadelphia during World War II. With the help of Lillian Bassman, Faurer embarked on a career as a fashion photographer, publishing his first fashion photo in a 1948 issue of Junior Bazaar. He continued to shoot fashion into the 1960s, working for Flair, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, Look, Mademoiselle, Marie-Claire, Seventeen, and Vogue.

- MoCP (Museum of Contemporary Photography)