Close-up of a female hand with perfectly varnished nails, holding a cigarette between fleshy red lips…. An allusive image that expresses the open-mindedness of the late 60’s, a climate celebrated here in the first monograph on Harri Peccinotti: fashion photographer, graphic designer and all round artist whose work strongly influenced the fashion and collective imagination of the day. Now objects of male eyes, now liberated leaders of an unstoppable sexual revolution, women are the undisputable protagonists of this book. Sexy, sporty, independent, portrayed on dream beaches or against the background of original fashion sets, women have always been a constant in Peccinotti’s photography. From the celebrated sunflower for the ’68 Pirelli calendar to the nude immersed in a bathtub of green water, H.P. presents a broad selection of shots published in fashion magazines, together with page-proofs, book-jackets and album covers created by Peccinotti in the space of about forty years. As well as the monthly Nova, one of the most influential 60’s magazines which introduced epoch-making changes in graphics, formats and photo editing, over the years Harri Peccinotti (1938) was also art director of Flair, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and Vogue. One of the first to bring black women into fashion photography, his fame as a photographer is linked to two Pirelli calendars (1968 and 1969) and, as a designer, to the restyling of the French daily Le Matin in the 1970’s.
