Mid–Century Fashion and Advertising Photography

This handsome volume is the first book to survey his photographic work and brings to light his magnificent career and restores him to the pantheon of postwar photographers. Helburn was the photographer of choice for many of the top advertising agencies in New York in the 1950s and 1960s. Doyle Dane Bernbach’s Helmut Krone considered Helburn a hero for fighting ‘the limits and style of the studio and the slowness of Kodachrome’, achieving ‘a revolution in visual methods’. As Helburnhimself said, ‘I always tried to do something different. Shock value was a term that was used. And I meant to shock people as much as I could.’ Shock value and an unrelenting hunger for success helped Helburn to a pioneer’s share in the revolutionary era of advertising while his work would also appear on the editorial pages and covers of major magazines.