NEW YORK — David Yurman launches its Fall 2019 ad campaign, featuring iconic photographs of New York by Ernst Haas.
The company celebrates its hometown with this campaign, which juxtaposes still-life images of Yurman jewelry with Haas’s photographs, underscoring their shared source of inspiration: New York.
The campaign aims to recognize photographers and artists who seek to push the conventions of their field, drawing a connection to David Yurman’s unconventional approach to creating jewelry: mixing metals, adding diamonds to silver, introducing unexpected materials, as well as developing cutting-edge technology in jewelry-making.
“With this campaign, we pay tribute to the dreamers, makers and renegades who continually inspire us, like Austrian-American photographer Ernst Haas,” says David Yurman. The new campaign celebrates his groundbreaking images of New York City published in 1953 for Life Magazine‘s first full-color photo essay. “Sybil, Evan and I consider Haas a kindred spirit,” explains David. “He expressed feeling, pushed the boundaries of his craft and always followed his intuition.”
To capture the creative spirit of New York—a constant source of inspiration for the brand’s designs—David Yurman worked with NYC-based photographer Robin Broadbent and the estate of Ernst Haas.
Known for his innovative use of color photography, visual experimentation, concentration on shape and use of natural light, Haas is acclaimed as one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century.
He pioneered the use of color photography at a time when it was considered inferior to black-and-white as a medium for creative photographers. His innovative use of the slow shutter speed gave many of his pictures the illusion of movement.
“Bored with obvious reality, I find my fascination in transforming it into a subjective point of view,” Haas wrote in 1961. “Without touching my subject, I want to come to the moment when, through pure concentration of seeing, the composed picture becomes more made than taken. Without a descriptive caption to justify its existence, it will speak for itself—less descriptive, more creative; less informative, more suggestive; less prose, more poetry.”
