Ellen von Unwerth

Ellen von Unwerth – Circus girl, snake charmer and top model

Ellen von Unwerth was born in 1954; she spent her childhood and youth in difficult circumstances, initially in an orphanage in Allgau and then with various foster families in Hesse. She was fascinated by fairy tales and fantasy worlds from a young age and dreamed of the circus. At the age of 16, she finally ventured into the longed-for magical land when she moved to a commune in Munich with her boyfriend and applied for a job at Roncalli Circus. In fishnet tights and adorned with a star, she introduced the next acts or assisted the clowns, and had the opportunity to first meet celebrities such as Roman Polanski or Ingmar Bergman. One day, she was stopped on the street and hired as a cosmetics model. She modelled for the teen magazine Bravo as a snake tamer, attracting the attention of the director of Elite model agency, beginning a highly successful ten-year model career, leading her to Paris and further, from 1975 onwards.

Turning point in Africa; rapid success as a photographer

On a fashion shoot in Kenya in 1986, Ellen von Unwerth reached a watershed. On a break, she borrowed a camera to photograph local children. These pictures were later published in Jill magazine. From that moment, it was clear to von Unwerth that she would much rather work as a photographer. As early as 1989, she was commissioned by the French fashion magazine ELLE to photograph an advertising campaign for the jeans label Guess – and chose the 17-year-old unknown up-and-coming model Claudia Schiffer. The campaign was a success, Claudia Schiffer became a world star, and almost overnight Ellen von Unwerth became a famous and sought-after photographer. In the years that followed, she continued to show her sound instinct and promoted the careers of several top models including Carla Bruni, Eva Herzigová and Naomi Campbell. Although von Unwerth named Helmut Newton as her greatest role model, her works demonstrated her own unique style, picturing female beauty with cool eroticism, and always spiced with a little fine irony. 

Awards, book publications, short films

Ellen von Unwerth had no need to worry about a lack of recognition in the following decades. Acclaimed journals such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and i-D published her photos, and in 1991 she won first prize at the International Festival of Fashion Photography. She also released her own illustrated books, the first being Snaps in 1994, followed by five further volumes, the highpoint of which was Fräulein in 2009, for which numerous celebrities were staged in lacquer and leather. It was not only scantily clad women who posed for Unwerth, however, and in 2010 she portraited the German national players at the World Cup in South Africa. This versatile artist has also directed short films, including music videos for groups such as Duran Duran or Salt’n’Peppa. Ellen von Unwerth is married to Christian Fourteau, is the mother of a daughter, and lives mainly in Paris, whilst also owning a flat in Berlin.