Text from The Encyclopedia of Photography (1986)

Outerbridge, Paul Jr.
American, 1896-1958

Paul Outerbridge enjoyed a long and varied career as a photographer. His early work, influenced by Paul Strand, consisted primarily of still-life abstractions of ordinary objects such as cups, light bulbs, milk bottles, machine parts, and eggs. He became a fashion and commercial photographer when his work attracted the attention of national and international magazines. He was especially acclaimed for his work in color. Finally, he produced a series of erotic and fetishistic nudes in color, few of which he was able to exhibit or publish during his lifetime.

Outerbridge was born into a wealthy family in New York City. He attended private schools, studied anatomy, drawing, and aesthetics at the Art Students League, and began his career as an illustrator and theatrical designer. He joined the Canadian Royal Flying Corps in 1917, but was discharged after a few months' time, following an accident. He subsequently enlisted in the U.S. Army where he gained his first photographic experience documenting materials in a lumber camp.

In 1921, he enrolled in the Clarence H. White School of Photography and started his serious photographic work, shooting still-lifes and nudes with large-format cameras. He insisted upon using only the finest platinum paper, an indication of the perfectionism which was to be a hallmark of his entire oeuvre. His first published picture appeared in Vogue in 1922, the year he also became acquainted with Alfred Stieglitz and began sculpture studies with Alexander Archipenko.

By 1924 Outerbridge had taken on many commercial accounts. His work appeared in Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, and other periodicals. He desired total control of lighting and design, often employing preliminary sketches, and made the most meticulous adjustments to achieve his elegant textures and tones.

Outerbridge traveled to London in 1925. He was made an honorary member of the Royal Photographic Society but declined the Society's offer to give him a one-man show. He went on to Paris where he was to live for the next several years. He soon became a prominent member of the avant-garde artistic community, becoming friendly with Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, and Berenice Abbott, and meeting such important artists as Brancusi, Picasso, Stravinsky, and Picabia. He began his serious study of eroticism, decadence, and fetishism during this time.

In May 1925, Outerbridge began photographing for Paris Vogue, working with Edward Steichen. Three months later he began his own freelance business. A large and expensive studio he opened with a partner closed within a year. Outerbridge worked briefly with film director G. W. Pabst in Berlin and acted as set advisor for the film Variety.

In 1929 Outerbridge returned to New York and set up a country studio where he began to do challenging work in carbro color photography. Achieving mastery quickly, he became a successful commercial color photographer and worked in earnest on his color nude studies.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Outerbridge shot many covers for House Beautiful, some of which were included by Beaumont Newhall in The History of Photography exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1937. Outerbridge published his classic book, Photography in Color, in 1940.

In 1943 he moved to Hollywood and then to Laguna Beach, California, where he opened a small portrait studio but lived in virtual retirement. He closed the studio in 1945 to work in the fashion industry in an administrative position. in the late 1940s and early 1950s he traveled and contributed photo-stories to various magazines. He wrote a monthly column for U.S. Camera in 1955.

A one-man show of his work was held at the Smithsonian Institution in 1959, a year after his death, but his reputation waned until the mid-1970s when several books and exhibitions brought him back to the public eye.