Steven Meisel - Biography

Steven Meisel (born June 5, 1954) is an American fashion photographer who obtained popularity and critical acclaim with his work in US and Italian Vogue and his photographs of friend Madonna in her 1992 book Sex. He is now considered one of the most successful fashion photographers in the industry, shooting regularly for both US and Italian Vogue, and lately W (also published by Condé Nast).

One of Meisel's first jobs was to work for fashion designer Halston as an illustrator. He also taught illustration part-time at Parsons. Meisel never thought he could become a photographer. He admired photographers like Jerry Schatzenberg, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and Bert Stern. He felt that illustration was a thing of the past and found photography as a lasting medium. Later on, while working at Women's wear daily as an illustrator, he went to Elite Model Management where Oscar Reyes a booker who liked his illustrations allowed him take pictures of some of their models. He would photograph them in his apartment in Gramacery Park or on the street: on weekdays he would work at Women's Wear Daily and on weekends with the models. One of them was Phoebe Cates. Some of these models went to castings for Seventeen magazine to show their portfolios which held some of his photography and the people at Seventeen subsequently called Meisel and asked if he wanted to work with them.

Meisel currently works for many different fashion magazines, including US and Italian Vogue in which he has photographed every cover for two decades.

 

 

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