Château La Coste presents Let Life Happen, a major exhibition devoted to 20th‑century photographer Frank Horvat.
On view from 15 February to 12 April 2026 at the Galerie des Anciens Chais, the show is organised in collaboration with the Frank Horvat Studio and brings together 46 original prints from the mid‑1950s to the late 1980s. The title, borrowed from a phrase by Rainer Maria Rilke, encapsulates Horvat’s way of seeing: embracing chance, fleeting moments and unexpected framings to explore how photography can both suspend time and remain open to spontaneity.
The exhibition traces Horvat’s journey from post‑war night scenes in Paris and London to iconic black‑and‑white images of New York and later vibrant colour series. Early works such as the celebrated Paris by Night depict dancers, night owls, cafés and bars in grainy, shadowy, subtly sensual images that reveal his acute attention to urban textures, typography, light and architecture.
A section of the show focuses on Horvat’s pioneering contribution to fashion photography, where his reportage‑style approach broke with studio conventions by favouring real locations, natural gestures and the unpredictability of the street, while preserving a strong sense of elegance and glamour. This new way of working helped redefine the visual language of fashion and left a lasting mark across photographic genres.
Born in 1928 in Abbazia, Horvat began his career in 1950 and quickly gained international recognition with reportage from Pakistan and India, leading to his inclusion in MoMA’s legendary The Family of Man exhibition in 1955. After settling in Paris, he produced influential series on “Paris by night” and worked for leading magazines including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour and Queen, while pursuing personal projects from Calcutta to New York and across Europe.
Throughout his life, Horvat sought to escape stereotypes in both reportage and fashion, experimenting with telephoto lenses, unusual viewpoints and later colour and digital techniques, culminating in his final project L’œil au bout des doigts in 2020. Let Life Happen invites visitors to discover a body of work that remains strikingly modern: free, daring and deeply human, asking what it means to “let life happen” without imposing constraints on the world.
21 January 2026
