Henry Clarke's Fashion Photography and the Art of the Tableau Vivant

Henry Clarke (1918, Los Angeles) was a prolific fashion photographer for Vogue France in the 1950s, known for an elegant femininity reminiscent of Irving Penn but, according to Nancy Hall Duncan, without the same formal rigor. Clarke masterfully bridged painting and photography, particularly through tableau vivants, iconographic references, and direct placement of subjects near artworks. A standout 1955 photograph features model Dorian Leigh wearing a Jacques Heim dress at the Grand Palais in Paris, during an exhibition dedicated to Gustave Courbet. Leigh is captured turning away from the viewer, leaning toward Courbet's painting of two women on the Seine riverbank, her expression suspended between dreaminess and annoyance. The composition contrasts Leigh's constrained, baroque modernism with the bucolic naturalism of Courbet's sleeping, nude lovers in the background. Clarke's choice of painting and pose is deliberate, creating a portrait within a portrait that explores themes of freedom, intimacy, and the modern body. The photograph is held by the Musée Galliera, the fashion museum of the City of Paris.