Vera Lehndorff (born 1939 in Kaliningrad, Russia) studied painting
and design at the
Fachschule für Gestaltung in Hamburg from 1958 to 1961. In 1961 she moved
to Florence. Lehndorff's modeling career began there. She made her
international breakthrough in 1966 in Michelangelo Antonioni's cult film
Blow-up,
after which Veruschka, as she came to be known professionally, became a
1960s fashion icon. During
the 1968 shoot in Rome for Franco Rubartelli's film
Veruschka, poesia
di una donna (1971), she experimented with body-painting,
progressively transforming her appearance in her own artworks as well as
in collaboration with
Holger
Trülzsch, whom she met in 1969.
