[The Guardian] The big picture: George Hoyningen-Huene’s mysterious Divers

The big picture: George Hoyningen-Huene’s mysterious Divers

Seemingly shot on the French Riviera, the grand make-believe and glamour of this famous image is characteristic of the photographer’s work for French Vogue’s golden age

George Hoyningen-Huene took this famous picture, Divers, not at the French riviera, as it seems, but on the roof of the Vogue studio on the Champs-Élysées. The image originally appeared in a magazine spread headlined “Modern Mariners Put Out to Sea”. Its grand make-believe was characteristic of Hoyningen-Huene, friend and confidant to Coco Chanel, and a fixture in the French avant garde between the wars.

There has been speculation about the identity of the two models in the shot. It was long thought that the man on the “diving board” was Horst P Horst, the model who became Hoyningen-Huene’s lover and eventually supplanted him as the star photographer of French Vogue’s golden age. Recent research has shown, however, that the picture was taken a couple of months before the pair met. There is more certainty about the woman beside him, thought to be Lee Miller, another protege of Hoyningen-Huene, then just embarking on her career as an artist.

George Hoyningen-Huene is published by Thames & Hudson on 28 March

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