“I’ve known Vivienne Westwood for ages, and we’ve been working together on her advertising campaign for many years. I was always keen on her and her look, her courage and her attitude, not least where politics are concerned. She’s not actually interested in photography at all, but when I asked her to do some nude pictures, she trusted me completely and thought the idea of doing them now, at the age of 68, was really lovely. I’m delighted how coquettish and youthful and sexually attractive Vivienne looks in the pictures - and she really is all of those things.” - Juergen Teller

Juergen Teller is considered one of the most important contemporary photographers of our time and is one of the few artists who has managed to operate successfully both in the art world and at the centre of the commercial sphere. Teller entered the London photography scene via the music industry, taking photographs for record covers by artists such as Björk, Elastica, Elton John, New Order, Sinead O’Connor and Texas. Teller’s photographs first appeared in the late 80’s and included portraits of Kate Moss when she was just 15, spearheading the shift that was to follow in the representation of beauty and fashion. In the early 90’s he photographed Nirvana backstage and started a decade long relationship capturing the behind the scenes at Helmut Lang’s fashion shows.

Teller’s provocative interventions in conventional celebrity portraiture are apparent in works such as a photograph of Victoria Beckham in which we only see her bare, high-heeled legs hanging over the sides of a Marc Jacobs shopping bag for the Spring Summer 2008 campaign. Other well-known examples include Vivienne Westwood reclining naked on a floral settee in a star tling triptych, or the intimate portrait of Björk and her son shot in the Blue Lagoon. Subverting the conventional relationship of the artist and model, Teller often pictures himself as the muse in his photographs, seen in the Louis XV series with Charlotte Rampling, or in his controversial shoot in the French landscape with Kanye and Kim Kardashian West for System magazine. Whatever the setting, all his subjects collaborate in a way that allows for the most surprising poses and emotional intensity. His personal work consists of capsuled series of intimate family moments, such as Keys to the House (2010-2012), photographed in the British countryside and Irene im Wald (2012), shot in the forest with his mother in his hometown of Erlangen, Germany. Driven by a desire to tell a story in every picture he takes, Teller has shaped his own distinct and instantly recognizable style, which combines humor, self-mockery, candid honesty and raw emotion.