Gösta Reinhold Pettersson

Place: Örebro

Born: 1923

Death: 2017

Biography:

Gösta 'Gus' Peterson was a Swedish-American photographer whose fashion photographs were widely published in the editorial pages of magazines including Elle, Esquire, Essence Harper's Bazaar, Mademoiselle, Marie Claire, and The New York Times, from the late 1950s to the late 1980s. He was born in Örebro, Sweden in 1923 and moved to Stockholm where he studied illustration and advertising graphics at the Anders Beckman Skola. After graduation, he served in the Swedish military from 1943 to 1944. In 1948, he moved to New York and got a job as an illustrator at the department store Lord & Taylor. He found himself becoming restless 'hanging over a drafting table' all day and honed his skills as a photographer practicing street photography on the streets of New York and photographing children, his friends and family, and himself. In the 1960s, Bea Feitler, the former Art Director for Harper’s Bazaar, Ms., and Rolling Stone said, 'The most interesting fashion pages now – the ones that say the most about our times – are Gösta Peterson’s for Mademoiselle.' The photographer Duane Michals called him, 'underrated.' He was married to Patricia Evans, née Patricia Ann Louis, who at the time was a fashion associate at Mademoiselle, from 1954 until his death in 2017. Peterson credits her with helping him jumpstart his career as a photographer. Patricia Peterson frequently collaborated with Gösta Peterson, during her terms as fashion editor of The New York Times from 1957 to 1977 and vice president of the exclusive department store Henri Bendel from 1977 to 1989.