When I first read about Brian Stonehouse, I was flabbergasted. His life story completely blew me away. I was thinking it just couldn’t be true. It had to be a work of fiction – a masterpiece of imaginative storytelling, maybe even a government propaganda too unbelievable to begin with.
It was a story that I just couldn’t imagine coming out of a John Grisham or John le Carré spy novel – that is, if they had thought of infusing the subject of ‘fashion’ in their writing. Although the thought sounds pretty original but seems to be too out-of-the-box.
Then came an illustrated book released by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston celebrating his extraordinary life written by Frederic A. Sharf and curated by Michelle Tolini Finamore respectively. Not to mention an exhibition showcasing his work last November 14 – December 23, 2014 that put the lost art of fashion illustration back into the limelight.
The introduction of color photography dethroned fashion illustrations off the pages of the magazines – opting for high-speed production and printing – at a time when some of those art works were either destroyed or thrown away. For those that have managed to survive are now enjoying a newfound resurgence. It has become one of those rare collector’s items with is esteemed for their organic feel and timeless elegance.
The story of Brian Stonehouse started when he became an undercover agent for the British government. With his fluency in French, he was deployed in France as a wireless operator to which his artist’s paint box served as a disguise for his equipment.
His service was short-lived when the Gestapo arrested him all the while still maintaining his cover as a French art student named Michel Chapuis. To spare himself from the brutality in prison and concentration camps, he decided to sketch the camp guards and their families. His sketches and sharp visual memory proved very useful when he was asked to testify at the Nazi war crimes trials. After being liberated by the Americans, he pressed on as a fashion illustrator in the U.S. working for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elizabeth Arden, Pucci and among others.
Who would have thought that the sketches would mark the beginning of ‘fashion illustration’ as an art form? His work has become synonymous with those legendary magazines depicting the clothing, behavior and posture of the fashionable set including those of high society – not to mention Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.
By the time he moved back to Britain, he took up portrait painting and eventually becoming a theosophist at United Lodge of Theosophists in his final years. In 1998, Stonehouse succumbed to heart attack but his works continue to live on earning the kind of prestige he experienced in his lifetime.
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Have a look at some of Brian Stonehouse’s works, check out this gallery.
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Photos via Museum of Fine Arts - Boston, Art School Head and Abbott and Holder Ltd
