Around the time Irving Penn made 1950’s The Harlequin Dress (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn), one Vogue reader declared that his pictures were so intense that “they burned on the page.” Nearly 75 years later, it remains among the magazine’s most celebrated fashion photographs and, surely, Penn’s masterpiece. The picture was a collaborative affair between the image-maker and his model, who, as the title reveals, he would soon marry. Her eyes follow you like the Mona Lisa’s—to whom Time magazine had already compared her—compelling you to stare back.
An exceptional version of it can be seen this spring as London’s V&A opens the Sainsbury Gallery, its biggest space, for an epic new exhibition of photographs. At more than 300 artworks, “Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection” is the largest photographic show in the museum’s history and a glimpse into one of the finest collections in private hands. It starts at 1950, Penn’s annus mirabilis, and goes bang up to now. (“We’ve somehow managed to squeeze in a 2023 cyanotype by Meghann Riepenhoff,” says Furnish.)
In the early 1990s and just beyond, Sir Elton made several of those volte-faces that have often punctuated his collecting career. He sold nearly everything—cars, jewelry, paintings, Dresden figurines, art deco bronzes, Italian silver—to concentrate instead on acquiring photographs. Penn’s tour de force was one of his first buys.
“Photography came into my life right after I became sober,” Elton explains. “After leaving rehab, I went to Cahors to be with friends, a wonderful mix of people, including photography dealer David Fahey. It was during that trip and through the lens of my new sobriety that photography really resonated with me. For my first acquisition—typically, it was never going to be just one piece—Fahey, who was on his way to an art fair, had brought boxes of work filled with various photographers to the house: Irving Penn, Herb Ritts, Edward Weston. I bought 10 photographs on the spot and I haven’t stopped since.”
The John/Furnish collection currently stands at around 7,000 artworks and counting. “While Elton jumps in feet-first,” says Furnish, “I love to know everything about the artist, the series, and their overall work and how all of that culminates to the piece in front of us.”
The collection spans nearly every discipline, from still life to portraiture, nudes to fashion, the abstract and graphic to real life and documentary. Francis Bacon can rub shoulders with Mae West, Divine, with Malcolm X, Penn and Richard Avedon with contemporary Vogue photographers Tyler Mitchell and Harley Weir.
“I’ve become a little more patient when hunting down a particular print,” says Elton. “Not only must it be vintage but the condition must be museum-quality.” Diane Arbus’s 1962 work Child With a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, NYC was, he adds, “quite the search—we were on the prowl for years. In the end, our patience finally paid off and we found the perfect vintage print.”
So what makes a photograph irresistible? “I know instantly,” says Elton. “The image must grab me the first moment I see it to have it join the collection. If the work is powerful enough, then I will have an emotional response immediately, whether it’s humor or desire or sadness.” He continues, “I’d hope that the viewer walks away not only inspired but also with an understanding of how David and I collect, how we want our collection to represent where photography was and where it is heading.”
Plus, with the inclusion of artists including Robert Mapplethorpe and Peter Hujar, who died from AIDS, the show creates a “powerful crossover with all the work [we] do within the Elton John Aids Foundation,” says Furnish. “It is a constant reminder of how much we lost and how we are fighting to make sure it never happens again.”
“Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection” is at the V&A in London through January 5.