Dominique Nabokov

Photographer, New York

Dirk Ippen Fellow - Class of Spring 2014

Dominique Nabokov is a photographer who divides her time between the United States and France. After starting as an assistant photographer to Patrick Demarchelier, in 1980, she branched out on her own and focused on portrait photography and photo-reportage. Her work has appeared in many publications, including the New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Le Monde, and Le Nouvel Observateur, and is featured in the collections of the Musée Européen de la Photographie and the FNAC (Fonds National d’Art Contemporain). The New York Review of Books 2009 Desk Diary features 53 of her black-and-white photographs of novelists, poets, and playwrights whose works have been reviewed by or who have have written for the publication. In recognition of her contributions to the arts and literature, Nabokov was made Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of the Arts and Letters). In the fall of 2012, Nabokov was the Marina Kellen French Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy.

Project Description

Berlin Living Rooms

Nabokov worked on her project “Berlin Living Rooms,” the third in her trilogy of interiors books. She has already completed Paris Living Rooms (Assouline, 2002) and New York Living Rooms (Overlook, 1998). Using the remaining available stock of the discounted Polaroid Colorgraph type 691 film, her work has revealed the extraordinarily varied living rooms of celebrated New Yorkers and Parisians. “New York Living Rooms is not exactly about interior decoration,” writes Nabokov. “It represents a special stylistic and aesthetic approach, it is above all a document. No rearranging, no adding of bouquets, no use of flood lights. I approach the living rooms like I approach the people I photograph: a portrait as close to the reality as possible.”

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