Deborah Turbeville: Atmosphere

About the exhibition

This show holds about 200 pieces by Deborah Turbeville, and The Korea Herald reports that 102 are originals, including vintage prints and collages. It calls this the artist's first solo exhibition in Korea, organized with MUUS Collection, a New York photography archive that acquired the work in 2020.

piknic says "atmosphere" was the word Turbeville valued most and used often when discussing these pictures. It adds that, rather than asking sitters to smile or seduce, the photographs look toward inner lives and the mood around them. piknic's text runs from early studies to photocollage, which is collage made from photographs, and names places including rural eastern America, Saint Petersburg, Versailles and Mexico.

The Korea Herald discusses Unseen Versailles (1981), with furniture under sheets and statues worn with age, and Maquillage (1975), an imaginary magazine assembled from ripped pictures and scribbled notes. It also describes Passport as some 130 collages drawn from a novel Turbeville never published.

About the artist

Deborah Turbeville (1932–2013) was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts. After working as an assistant and house model for the designer Claire McCardell, Turbeville held editing jobs at Harper's Bazaar and Mademoiselle. In 1966, Turbeville took a workshop taught by Richard Avedon and Marvin Israel, and The Korea Herald dates the start of picture-making to the artist's mid-30s. The photographs appeared mainly in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Mirabella. Unseen Versailles won the American Book Award in Photography in 1982. piknic names Turbeville with Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin as leading a new direction in fashion photography.

Sources: MUUS Collection: Deborah Turbeville · piknic: exhibition page · The Korea Herald