Out of Focus

Matte blue skies, frothy waves, bright sunlight, a beach is a perfect backdrop for a fashion shoot--so long as no one kicks sand in the lens.

Generations of photographers have shown off sportswear and flesh at the seashore, and that’s what “Fashion at the Beach,” at the Orange County Museum of Art, is all about. There are some clouds on this horizon, however. The exhibition, assembled by the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, Fla., is devoid of context.

The show says nothing about the history of fashion photography, which offers a fascinating parallel to women’s (and gay men’s) changing roles in society. The exuberance of the newly athletic models of the 1930s, for example, gets tamped down in the ladylike ‘50s and reborn in the bionic ‘70s.

There’s no discussion (in the wall text or the slender catalog) of relevant social issues or even the special kind of public license and display that occurs at beaches.

Although the show includes key fashion photographers of the past seven decades, it doesn’t discuss their special styles. The inclusion of photographs seemingly unrelated to fashion--such as Herbert Matter’s melodramatic view of male beauty, “Nude with Driftwood”--seems arbitrary, as does the arrangement of the images in the show.

So we’re left with some pretty pictures, lots of vacuous ones, and the sense of a great opportunity missed.

As aesthetic objects, the old gelatin silver images are more seductive than much of the work from our era.

Hungarian photographer Martin Munkacsi pioneered the notion of models who jump and run instead of posing demurely. A 1933 shot of statuesque Lucile Brokaw--who may have been the Elle MacPherson of her day--shows her dashing down the beach in a romper with an attached cape that billows out behind her.

(It’s funny how a site that encourages near-nudity also frequently serves in the fashion world as a backdrop for elaborate body-shielding cover-ups. More than 50 years later, Steven Klein photographed a model on a beach who disappears in a vast hooded cape that looks like a cartoon of the Grim Reaper.)

Munkacsi’s 1935 image of a woman suspended horizontally in the air far above the tip of a diving board shows him at his elegant best, combining a literal sense of movement with the stylized balance and distance implied by the vast white space of the paper.

In George Hoyningen-Huene’s arty 1928 photograph of Schiaparelli beachwear, bright sun and deep shadow divide a staircase into strictly regimented blocks of white and black. Fellow photographer Horst poses with vamping model Bettina Jones below a teasing glimpse of another woman’s legs.

While this ultra-stylized use of light looks dated today, Hoyningen-Huene’s emphasis on the androgynous body gives “The Divers, Swimwear by Izod,” from about 1930, a strikingly late-20th century look. Calvin Klein ads are indebted to images like this sleekly groomed man and woman, posed with heads turned away on the end of a diving board.

French photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue’s 1927 image of carefree friends literally kicking up their heels in on a sunny May day in Cannes (“Vera, Bibi, Arlette”) has the serendipitous feel of a snapshot--which it was. The “candid” approach didn’t catch on as a fashion photo technique until much later.

During the ‘50s and early ‘60s, the pages of Harpers’ Bazaar magazine were filled with reedy, heavily made-up models striking formal poses in fussy clothing. The hot sun of a Barbados beach shines through a stiff, translucent hat worn by model Evelyn Tripp in a photo by Lillian Bassman.

For decades, overhead shots had pride of place in beach fashion layouts. A woman sunbathing on her back on the sand not only fully revealed the cut of a bathing suit but also conveyed the languor of resort life. Dennis Piel’s 1980 photo, “Pool Fashion,” spoofs this ubiquitous angle with the view of a woman abandoning herself to the sun’s rays as she lies on the grass next to her suburban pool.

Perhaps because of their flat features and vivid lighting, beaches also have inspired countless fantasy shots. William Klein’s wonderfully ludicrous “Desert Picnic Morocco,” from 1958, features American models pretending to play Moroccan instruments, read an Arabic newspaper and feast on exotic refreshments.

Passersby reacting to beach fashion shoots have inspired numerous photographers obviously intrigued by the meeting of reality and fantasy on neutral turf.

Famous beaches in Florida and California have their own subgenres of photography.

Miami Beach’s status as a haven for retirees has prompted images like Andy Sweet’s “The Miami Beach Project,” from the late ‘70s. Passive-looking elderly people sit, blank-faced, on a beach wall while an aged woman bundled in a sweater slowly makes her way with a cane.

Beautiful young bodies people Skrebneski’s “Venice Beach, California” from 1987. The poses of these pouty girls and guys--hands resting suggestively on belts or someone else’s derriere, or holding gym equipment--speak in the aggressive language of youth marketing. This could be an ad for jeans or a soft drink or a new movie.

Some recent images in the show are part of the catatonic and deranged schools of photography, in which models either appear to be well-dressed zombies or scream at the camera, preferably while trapped in an out-of-control hairdo and ill-fitting clothing.

Like the white paper backgrounds used in the studio, beaches accommodate all these styles and fashions, serving as eternal blank canvases for photographers’ fancies.

* “Fashion at the Beach,” through Jan. 3 at the Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach. Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Tuesday-Sunday. Admission: $5 general; $4 seniors and students, free for children under 16. (949) 759-1122.