Style is one of the most tantalizing and bewitching aspects of modern day culture. The aura of celebrity, the style and vanity of the rich and beautiful are all imbued with irresistible magnetism. The media constantly show the accepted conception of glamour and celebrity as being a mixture of sex, publicity, extravagance and style, but while fame is exciting and magnetic, its promise an intoxicating scene of enviable excess and success.

In a subject that is all about the power of the visual image, The Beautiful Blessed evokes society’s two favourite subjects; celebrity and style. 8 major and 3 smaller individual exhibitions of world-class photography are presented, with each artist presenting their individual view on the beautiful and the blessed in the 20th century. Photographers as diverse as satirical high society portraitist

Jonathan Becker are displayed along side intimate and frank works by Michel Comte, timeless, elegant works by Holger Eckstein, an enduring and ethereal series on the complexities of fame by Greg Gorman, iconic works by the creator of the fine art fashion image William Klein. On display also is the distinct contemplative pictorial language of Steve McCurry, exquisite, enigmatic and elegant fashion and celebrity photoworks by Amedeo M.Turello, a vibrant body of images by the undeniably talented L.A. based artist Yu Tsai and natural, intimate and sincere photographs by Gilles-Marie Zimmermann.

A parallel exhibition on the Pirelli Calendar will run alongside The Beautiful Blessed. No other body of work documents 20^th and 21^st century contemporary trends quite as effectively as the Pirelli Calendar, making The Beautiful Blessed a comprehensive view on fine art celebrity and fashion portraiture.

The artists are showcased independently and the twin strands of celebrity and style are elegantly woven through a collection of works that are infused with lust, desire and envy but also quite beautifully capture the magic that propels these works to a higher, otherworldly rank. Complex, comprehensive and meticulously researched, The Beautiful Blessed proves that celebrity and style are both in part inaccessible, difficult to possess and even harder to preserve.

The Kempinski Grand Hotel des Bains is turned info a first class gallery for the occasion with lectures, a pop up bookshop, a workshop and photographers meeting point together with a Leica Lounge Gallery, all being created for the event.