Tom KUBLIN (also spelled Thomas KUBLIN) was a highly influential fashion photographer. Tom KUBLIN worked for designers Dior, Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga, and was a photographer for Harper’s Bazaar in the 1960s. Born in a small town in Hungary in 1924, KUBLIN had a fairly normal childhood. He and his brother Jean were raised by his mother after his father passed away unexpectedly at the age of 42. His father had worked for the Esterházys, a Hungarian aristocratic family, but the Kublins themselves were just a middle-class, hardworking family. KUBLIN didn’t like school – he wasn’t an academic, all he wanted to do was work with his hands. His early interest in photography started when he was 13, setting up a darkroom by himself. Tom KUBLIN was persistent in his love for photography, insisting it was where his future lay. At 15 Tom KUBLIN went to the Budapest School of Photography and won several prizes. This was swiftly followed by the outbreak of the Second World War, when he got a job taking photos of the devastating effects of the war on Budapest. After the liberation, an American journalist, who had seen and admired his work on the ruins of Budapest, took him through Hungary, Austria and Poland for a report on the various religions practised in Europe, finishing in Zurich. Iin November 1956, when the Soviets invaded Hungary following the Hungarian Revolution, caused Tom KUBLIN to flee back to Zurich. KUBLIN opened his own studio there and used it as a base to travel and work in New York and France. It was during one trip to Paris that he met Jacques FATH, the French fashion designer who massively influenced post-war haute couture, and contemporary and friend of Christian DIOR and Pierre BALMAIN. He photographed a special show of Jacques FATH’s clothes in St. Moritz. Once he met Katinka BLEEKER, a fashion model, who will become his muse and the mother of his child, Maria. During the 1950s and ‘60s KUBLIN worked with Balenciaga, Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Dior, Chanel, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. He was so well liked by BALENCIAGA that he was admitted into his inner circle – a great feat as BALENCIAGA was notoriously private. Kublin was close to Yves SAINT LAURENT too. He shot a short film of Yves SAINT LAURENT sketching. As well as models and designers, KUBLIN also worked closely with other photographers, and after he set up a studio in Rue St. Anne, Paris, the young Gian Paolo BARBIERI came to work for him. The Italian BARBIERI was only just starting out on what would later be a hugely successful career. BARBIERI worked for the likes of Valentino, Gianni Versace, Armani, Bulgari, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Dolce & Gabbana and in 1968 the magazine Stern named him as one of the 14 best fashion photographers in the world. Before all this, however, he started out as KUBLIN’s assistant, and still credits the time he spent there as the beginning of his career. Tom KUBLIN has influenced the wider photography industry. He was one of the great photographers of the 1950s and 1960s, and heavily involved in creative circles. Friends with artist Marc Chagall, iconic editor Diana Vreeland and designer BALENCIAGA, he was part of a group who made their mark on high society and made photographers famous in their own right. He died in 1966.