Tina Barney: Fashion

Blending personal history, family albums, and work made on assignment, this book offers a fresh take on a classic American photographer.

Celebrated for her large-format tableaux of affluent families in the United States and Europe, Tina Barney is a keen observer of style and its coded web of meanings. This book is the first to trace the role of sartorial expression across Barney’s long career, including a significant body of inventive editorial work made on assignment for leading magazines.

Part memoir, part career survey, the book begins with Barney’s family history and photographic albums. Her mother, a glamorous in-demand model in the 1940s, graced the cover of Harper’s Bazaar and was photographed by leading fashion photographers of the era, including Horst P. Horst and George Hoyningen-Huene. Growing up around glamour and artifice shaped Barney’s vision and understanding of images. This formative experience is made evident through an extensive plates section showcasing Barney’s sumptuous photographs for fashion and lifestyle publications, including Muse, Nest, and Arena Homme +, and for major fashion houses Gucci and Bottega Veneta. Brief texts by Barney guide the reader through her artistic development, offering lively personal anecdotes and bringing readers behind the scenes of pictures made in stately living rooms or on set for the pages of Vogue.