Guy Bourdin

Alison M. Gingeras

Guy Bourdin (1928-1991) created some of the most challenging and seductive fashion photographs of the last century. He worked for Vogue Paris for over thirty years, from 1955 to 1987, and his images filled the pages of international fashion magazines throughout the 1970s and 1980s in groundbreaking campaigns for Charles Jourdan, Bloomingdales and Issey Miyake. His glamorous, yet often surreal, work revolutionized the genre of fashion photography, presenting fashion as the luxurious embellishment rather than the subject of his images, which depict dark fantasies of lust, consumption and desire. Bourdin's legacy can still be seen in the work of photographers such as Stephen Meisel and Helmut Newton.

Guy Bourdins vivid, narrative-infused work placed him at the vanguard of fashion photography for a career that spanned four decades. In Between demonstrates Guy Bourdins unique conceptual and formal engagement with the double-page spread as an art form in itself. This concept appeared in his first published image for French Vogue (1955), a photograph of a model with an Haute Couture Dior hat captured alongside an array of butchered cow heads. This visual, a signature piece emblematic of the classic elements of Guy Bourdins entire oeuvre, stands firmly as one of the most daring fashion images of the 20th century. Guy Bourdins double page spread became a landmark in the history of advertising photography. His compositions gave new form to ideas about product-illustration creating independently arresting images that invited the reader to participate or witness. Guy Bourdin was both the narrator of a fantastic mise en scene as well as the choreographer of the magazine page, garnering all the more attention for his advertising clients such as Charles Jourdan. With 300 images, In Between re-assembles many of the original image layouts as they were published in magazines such as French Vogue, British Vogue, Vogue Italy, Harpers Bazaar, Linea Italiana and The Best, offering a new and illuminating critical context to the creative process. Guy Bourdin tailored his compositions to the constraints of the printed page both conceptually and graphically, and the mirror motif so central in his work finds its formal counterpart in the doubleness of the magazine spread. Layout and design become powerful metaphors for the photographic medium, engaging the eye and with it, the mind. Published by Steidldangin, In Between was conceived and edited by Shelly Verthime, whose unflagging devotion and nearly 10 years of research has resulted in an unparalleled grasp of the photographers oeuvre. The monograph is introduced by Charlie Scheips, whose knowledge and passion for art, fashion and photography as well as the history of magazine publishing, brings a new perspective to this enduring body of work. Guy Bourdin (19281991) was born in Paris. A painter his entire life and a self-taught photographer, he exhibited his first photographs at Galerie 29 in 1952. His work has been exhibited in the most prestigious museums, such as The Victoria & Albert Museum, the Jeu de Paume, The National Art Museum of China, The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and The Moscow House of Photography.

In Between

Intriguing, revolutionary and undoubtedly one of the most influential fashion photographers of the twentieth century, Guy Bourdin was a groundbreaking image-maker, whose work has achieved a cultlike following. His striking use of color, suggestive narratives and surrealist aesthetics established a visual language entirely his own. Though best known for his color images, Bourdin launched his career in black and white in the early 1950s. Untouched explores this largely unseen work and gives insight into the early development of his photographic eye. The carefully constructed images, initially conceived as an exhibition series, reveal his artistic motivation years before he began working on assignments for French Vogue and Photo Femina. In both concept and composition, these photographs display his fascination with striking graphic layouts and narrative cinematic portraiture. Capturing people he encountered on the streets of Paris, Bourdin trained his eye to transcend the realism of the medium, developing a unique perspective through unconventional manipulations of the picture plane. Guy Bourdin was born in Paris in 1928. His career as a fashion photographer spans over three decades. Bourdin shot largely for French Vogue as well as Harper's Bazaar, Chanel, Issey Miyake, Versace, Charles Jourdan and Emanuel Ungaro. Today Bourdin's work is held in prestigious museum including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Jeu de Paume, the Guggenheim and the National Museum of China. Bourdin died in 1991.

Untouched

The impact of Bourdin's imagery on the realms of both commercial and fine art photography continues to resonate today. He made radical changes in both the style and the meaning of commercial imagery. His fashion shoots are mysterious, hypnotic, surreal, exposing the true and unnerving nature of desire. He shows us that, within the context of fashion, it is rarely the product that compels us. It is the image - the carefully staged narrative of sexual fantasy, the quest for the unattainable, the suggestion of danger - that stimulates consumer desire. Guy Bourdin was born in 1928 and during his youth in post-war Paris, he showed precocious artistic talent and fierce ambition. He presented himself to Man Ray in the early fifties and was then spotted by French Vogue, where he went on to create some of their most sensational editorial images for over thirty years. His advertisements for Charles Jourdan shoes and Bloomingdales in the mid 1970s were the high point of his career and landmarks in the field of advertising. Throughout his life, Bourdin created images at a relentless pace and his work calls to mind the surrealist films of Bunuel or David Lynch. The images chosen for this book include not only his ground-breaking fashion shoots, but also his brooding black and white landscapes from the 1950s and the magical colour cityscapes of two decades later. Each is part of a carefully orchestrated sequence which offers an unprecedented insight into the full range Guy Bourdin's work.

Guy Bourdin

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