Artist of the day: Artist of the day, January 26: Guy Bourdin, French photographer (Fashion)

Friday, January 26, 2018

Artist of the day, January 26: Guy Bourdin, French photographer (Fashion)

Guy Bourdin (1928 – 1991), was a French artist and fashion photographer known for his provocative images. From 1955, Bourdin worked mostly with Vogue as well as other publications including Harper's Bazaar. He shot ad campaigns for Chanel, Charles Jourdan, Pentax and Bloomingdale's.

His work is collected by important institutions including Tate in London, MoMA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Getty Museum. The first retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London in 2003, and then toured the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, and the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris. The Tate is permanently exhibiting a part of its collection (one of the largest) with works made between 1950 and 1955.

He is considered as one of the best known photographers of fashion and advertising of the second half of the 20th century. He set the stage for a new kind of fashion photography.

Bourdin's photographs are often richly sensual but also rely heavily on provocation and ability to shock. Additionally integrating erotic, surreal, sinister components, Bourdin configured a whole new visual vocabulary with which to associate the goods of haute-couture. The narratives were strange and mysterious, often plainly exhibiting violence and graphic sexuality. Evident through astute reading of his compositional and thematic presentation, Bourdin profited from the influence of a diverse collection of contemporaries: first and foremost, his mentor Man Ray, but also the photographer Edward Weston, surrealist painters Magritte and Balthus, and Spanish surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel.

© 2018. All images are copyrighted © by Guy Bourdin Estate. The use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission from the artist is obtained.