Mario Testino is best known for his highly polished, exotically bright advertising campaigns and his exquisitely styled photographs of the couture scene. His style has been described as “luxury realism”, though Testino himself resists analysing it too much. He often sets up highly staged environments and captures arresting and magical images in the off-guard moments.
Artist: Mario Testino
Title: JULIANNE MOORE AT THE CRILLON HOTEL, PARIS 2008 (2010)
Edition: 175
Medium: C-type print on Fuji crystal archive supergloss paper
Size: 50 x 60 cm Signed and numbered by the artist
Julianne Moore at the Crillon Hotel, Paris 2008 (2010) is set in the deeply luxuriant interior of the Crillon, an 18th Century masterpiece of neo-classical architecture, renowned for its display of delicate sculpture and extraordinary wood panels. In sheer lingerie but otherwise fully dressed with a belt, shoes, stole, and bedecked with jewellery, Moore looks caught in a moment of intimacy. Her gaze, however, holds us, confronting us with our desire as we become lost in the drenched flash lit moment, highlighting Moore’s sensuality and the opulence of her surrounds.
Artist: Mario Testino
Title: Lara Stone 2008
Edition: 175
Medium: C-type print on Fuji crystal archive supergloss paper
Size: 50 x 60 cm Signed and numbered by the artist
Lara Stone 2008(2010) sees the model reclining in swathes of black tulle and chiffon, a slick of satin flowing from the ceiling across the floor. Stone rests contemplatively as though a patient sitter for a Joshua Reynolds painting. The feeling is of a bygone time when days passed more slowly. Her gaze is momentarily diverted away from the camera, suggesting we have caught her in a moment of private thought, yet her body remains obediently fixed in an almost porcelain doll like pose.