Victoria Hely-Hutchinson

Published by Libraryman

Printed in Sweden

For I Left My Grandmother’s House, Victoria Hely-Hutchinson turns not only her eye, but her ear as well to her extended family in Austria, merging fragments of family lore with keenly observed photographs. The work neither provides a tidy critique of the extant aristocracy, nor does it blithely venerate the decor, saying “ooooh,” while rolling the brocade curtains between its fingers. Instead, it simply shows and tells, through the disembodied perspective of familial subjectivity. It interrogates history but receives only demure shrugs in response.

The heart of the project lies in the darkly comedic stories told over dinner by Hely-Hutchinson’s domineeringly charismatic (or is it charismatically domineering?) grandmother, an Austrian countess, who ran away with her family’s English foreign exchange student (later known as Grandpa Hugh) at age 16, and now lives a life of ease in the French Riviera, captured with great sensitivity in Hely-Hutchinson’s documentary Vacances. Hely-Hutchinson set out to Austria, with her Grandmother’s name to unlock some portcullises, and get a seat at the dinner table.

Like the stories themselves, Hely-Hutchinson’s photographs are often unresolved, sometimes riddles, sometimes poems. Is a bat loose in the house a symbol? A nod to the old expression of eccentricity, “bats in the belfry?” A visual representation of the outside world intruding upon a fortified space? In these photos, specificity and metaphor collide, and never say excuse me.

The book contains a preface by the author.

First edition of 700 copies. Special edition of 25 copies, numbered, in paperboard slipcase, with signed original print. Pasted image on paperboard cover. Choice of 2 prints.

23 x 29 cm. 68 pages. 31 color plates. Offset printed paperbound hardcover. Linen thread bound. Beige headband. Authentic tip-in image on front cover.

Available at:

https://www.libraryman.se/victoria-hely-hutchinson-i-left-my-grandmothers-house/

Shot on location in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Shot at The Dan Flavin Institute in Bridgehamton.

Kate Moss for Cosmoss

Shot on location in the Cotswolds, UK

DP: Alex Reid

Creative Agency: Warsaw Creatives

Shot on location in Paris, France.

Set Design Phillipe Parreno, James Chinlund

Cecily Brown at her Manhattan Studio for WSJ Magazine.

Shot on location at Chatsworth House, UK.

With soundtrack Room 29 by Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales.

Chatsworth, Arcadia, Now published by Penguin Random House UK and Rizzoli US.

Art Direction: Huw Morgan / Graphic Thought Facility

Author: John Paul Stonard

Publisher: Richard Atkinson

Emily Bode (Bode) and Aaron Aujla (Green River Projects) at home for Architectural Digest.

Styling: Michael Bargo

At home in NYC for Sophie Bille Brahe. A collaboration with Jeremy Liebman.

A short film about Niki de Saint Phalle.

Commissioned by Art Basel and La Prairie.

Shot on location at MoMA PS1

Private View: Landon Metz

The artist Landon Metz leads a guided meditation on his dynamic, minimal paintings.

Shot on location in Chinatown, New York

Director / Editor : Victoria Hely-Hutchinson and Jeremy Liebman

DP: Jeremy Liebman

Music: Kasper Bjorke Quartet

Julian Schnabel in his studio at Palazzo Chupi, New York City.

Commissioned by guest editor Adut Akech for CNN Style

Shot on location at the Pyer Moss studio in New York City.

Director / Editor : Victoria Hely-Hutchinson

Director of Photography: Ethan Palmer

Producer: Ana Rosado

Departures Magazine

Models: Cecilia Sundstrom, Max Rendell

Styling: Melissa Ventosa Martin

Hair / Makeup: Petra Stenhammar

Production: Day Intl

On location in Halsingland, Sweden

Shot on location in Tuscany, Italy with Caroline Knudsen and Aske Bache

Styling: Emelie Johansson

Creative and Art Direction : Moon

Shot on location at Stephen’s home in Tivoli, New York.

Director / Editor : Victoria Hely-Hutchinson

DP: Sam Fleischner

Producer: Shelley Jones

Photographing Iselin Steiro at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen.

Model: Iselin Steiro

Styling: Emelie Johansson

Creative and Art Direction : Moon

Hair: Cim Mahoney

Makeup: Trine Skjøth

The wagashi was now stuck to the table. A sticky mess of red bean paste and sugar fusing itself to the black lacquered surface.

It was Tokyo’s July combination of humidity and direct sunlight through a glass window that dissolved the sweaty cube, it’s perspiration spreading out like tendrils.

The question now was whether to try and dislodge it and risk splitting the pristine gelatin that gave it the stillness of a frozen pond, or simply inviting her guests to join her at the aforementioned black and gold lacquered table. A poor knock off of a Meiji gem.

A knock off gem that she had lugged to three different apartments. The low table measuring exactly to the center of her shins, with the bruises to prove it. The low table that Lucy had insisted she buy as a souvenir from the junk shop, in the alley, near the she can’t remember where. But she did remember the way the owner smoked a cigarette and did not look at her as she gesticulated widely to inquire about the price.

A price she couldn’t calculate into dollars fast enough to determine if it was a good deal or not, as Lucy handed her some bills. And still hadn’t. Perhaps that’s why she kept it. Perhaps she secretly harbored a fantasy that if she too were to melt in the July humidity and direct sunlight, following the same fate as her wasgashi, that someone snapping on latex gloves would pick through her possessions.

He would assume that there was nothing of value. He would step over the pools of expired matter, when suddenly out of the corner of his eye, a sticky puddle on the low table would glint. He’d walk towards it, rubbing his forehead in recognition. His father having been an antique collector in Kanagawa, he knew the subtle winding of the brushwork as original. And he’d sell the piece for her, in memory of a woman he never knew. Confused as to what to do with the money and who to give it to.

And Lucy would be the right person, technically they had both paid for it. But she didn’t know where she was now. And as she sat down at the table attempting to peel the delicate treat from it’s surface, she realized they hadn’t spoken in three years. They hadn’t spoken since they had the argument in the little alley in she didn’t know where about who should carry the unreasonably heavy black and gold lacquered table.

Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis at her castle in Bavaria.

Shown on International Women’s Day in conjunction with the UN in Amsterdam.

Photographing at restaurants in London that are over 100 years old. Including Bentley’s, Wiltons, Savini at Criterion, Simpon’s in the Strand, Simpson’s Tavern, Rules and Sweetings.

Producer: Ellie Robertson

Creative Direction: David Lane

Me, You and Miu Miu.

Models: Emma Greenwell and Millie Brady

Director/Editor: Victoria Hely-Hutchinson

DP: Ethan Palmer

Creative Director: Sion Phillips

Styling: Rosie Arkell-Palmer

Hair: Emily Streatfeild-Moore

Makeup: Hiroshi Matsushita

Composer: Aska

Production: Dazed Media

Color: Nat Jencks

Shot on location in Ischia, Italy

Prop Styling: Julia Wagner

Lingerie and Swimwear Campaign

Creative Direction: Alex O’Brien

Styling: Elizabeth Black

Hair and Makeup: Ingeborg

Production: Disco Meisch

On location in Palm Springs, CA.

Montevideo, Uruguay with Fernando Santangelo

The last remaining 5 original owners of a Frank Lloyd Wright home. Located in:

Modesto, CA

Chattanooga, TN

Pleasantville, NY,

Minneapolis, Minnesota,

St Louis, Missouri.

For Muse Magazine

For AnOther Magazine

Producer: Holly Hay

Creative Direction: Julia Wagner, Catherine Gertner

Creative Direction: Julia Wagner

For Space Magazine

Photographing at Jack Pierson’s homes in New York City and 29 Palms, CA.