Born in1919, Frances McLaughlin-Gill became a fashion photographer and producer of television commercials. She studied at the Pratt Institure during the Depression and she was a staff photographer for Conde Nast publications 1944-1955 and went on to produce television commercials between 1964-1973.
Frances built a successful career beginning in the 1940s at Vogue and she was the first woman under contract to Vogue. One of Frances’ enduring abilities was to develop empathy for models in their work and foster real friendships. In a male dominated industry, this set Frances apart from the male fashion photographers who, regardless of talent could often treat women in their work as another object in a still-life, a vehicle for the photographers vision. Frances made the models to be real people. They look like thinking, feeling human beings who look gorgeous in the clothes, they’re not just vacuous, air-headed clothes hangers.
