As the heatwave is upon us, us women long for water not solely as a magical potion to revive us, but to wrap us in entirely. Like silk that removes all heaviness.

Art history has spent centuries chasing this. From the water nymphs of Pompeii to a Venus rising from her shell. Only rather recently has this iconography transformed itself into the woman who belongs entirely to and only herself.

At the height of this shift stand the great photographers capturing what happens when a woman decides to let the summer happen to her.

“The Diver, Lili Simmons, West Hollywood 2014” by MARKUS KLINKO

In “Floating Dreams”, captured from high above the turquoise, it feels almost like the body stops fighting gravity entirely. Beside it, Markus Klinko’s “The Diver, Lili Simmons” captures the exact opposite: looking up through the dark of the sea and towards the light. Together, they spot the two primary approaches to a mid-summer heatwave: total surrender and the quiet thrill of holding your breath just long enough to feel the control.

“Carmen, Formentera, Exposure Series” by BRUNO BISANG

There is an exact hour late in the afternoon when the sea stops cooling you down and starts charging you up. Sante D’Orazio caught this shift in Eva Herzigova,1996 as the iconic model stands waist-deep in liquid gold. It sits in direct, electric dialogue with Bruno Bisang’s Carmen, where the tide has pulled back just far enough to leave a second skin of sand. Neither photograph is about passive sunbathing; they are about a body actively drinking the heat.

“Girl with Swans for Greek VOGUE” by IRIS BROSCH

When the climate becomes theatrical, a woman’s response must be equally grand. Norman Parkinson’s “Apollonia van Ravenstein at the Crane Beach Hotel in Barbados for British Vogue 1973“ frames the shoreline not as a wild frontier, but as a private open-air parlour anchored by open antique architecture. Decades later, Iris Brosch pushed this mythology into pure folklore with “Girl with swans for Greek Vogue”. Standing on the Water of a glassy lagoon beside two swans, her subject treats the water as a natural extension of her own haute couture. It reminds us that the deep does not humble a woman; it crowns her.

“Monaco” by TONY KELLY

Water is, above all things, an instigator of mischief. Arthur Elgort’s “Gisele Bündchen in Louis Vuitton,Harbour Island Bahamas for Vogue Magazine 1999” is a masterclass in poolside hierarchy: Gisele striding across the hot stone in python heels, a tiny Yorkshire terrier tucked under her arm like a clutch, while a man looks up from the water in cheerful defeat. If Elgort captured the poolside reign, Tony Kelly captured its high-speed getaway. In Kelly’s “Monaco”, a woman pilots a vintage speedboat across the Côte d’Azur, her hair whipped into a copper halo by the salt wind. It is high-octane proof that water is the fastest way to turn stagnant summer lethargy into momentum.

“Dior Shoes, Tunisie 1980” by JEAN-DANIEL LORIEUX

Tony Kelly’s “She Dives me Crazy, Sardegna 2024” may be the defining image of our current summer. A woman executes a reckless, backward swan dive off the towering bow of a superyacht, watched by a perfectly symmetrical row of ten uniformed crew members. It is the direct spiritual heir to Jean-Daniel Lorieux’s brilliant 1980 visual punchline, “Dior Shoes, Tunisie, 1980”, where a pair of gold Christian Dior heels sit abandoned on the tip of a diving board while two bare feet breaking through the turquoise surface below is all we see of their owner.

This is where our heatwave daydream reaches its proper conclusion: not a frantic crawl toward hydration, but the glorious, sparkling realization that the shoes were always meant to come off—and the water was just waiting for us to make a scene.

All works are available as limited edition fine art prints. For pricing, editions, and availability, contact us at contact@preissfinearts.com or visit us at Bauernmarkt 14, Vienna.