Swedish photographer Gösta Peterson passed away on Friday 30 July at the age of 94. He was a remarkable fashion photographer, collaborating for The New York Times, Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar magazines. In 1967, he and model Naomi Sims initiated a small revolution in The New York Times fashion pages. Indeed, the black-American dummies were still not quite highlighted.
Gösta Peterson was born on April 26, 1923. He grew up in the neighborhood of Stockholm in Orebro. He graduated from the Beckmann College of Design. He arrived in New York shortly after the Second World War, in 1948. He made his first photographic photographs trying his hand at street photography with his Rolleiflex. Soon after he arrived, he met Patricia Louis, fashion editor for The New York Times. She offered her first publications in the pages of the newspaper. He married her in 1954. He later worked for GQ magazines, Mademoiselle, L’officiel. Surprisingly, he never worked for Vogue. He was also a great jazz photographer. In particular, his portraits of Duke Ellington are known.
Patricia Louis and he had two children. Peterson retired in 1986. His works were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
