Guy Bourdin

Guy Bourdin (December 2 1928 in Paris – March 29 1991 of cancer in Paris) was one of the best known photographers of fashion and advertising of the second half of the 20th century. He shared Helmut Newton’s taste for controversy and stylization, but Bourdin’s formal daring and the narrative power of his images exceeded the bounds of conventional advertising photography. Shattering expectations and questioning boundaries, he set the stage for a new kind of fashion photographyBure, Gilles de; Guy Bourdin; Thames & Hudson, London 2008] . Bourdin worked for Vouge and Harper’s Bazaar, and shot ad campaigns for Chanel, Issey Miyake, Emanuel Ungaro, Gianni Versace, Loewe, Pentax and Bloomingdale’s.

Biography

Guy Louis Banarès is born December 2, 1928, at 7 Rue Popincourt, Paris. He was abandoned by his mother the following yearhttp://www.studio-international.co.uk/photo/bourdin.asp] , and was adopted by Maurice Désiré Bourdin, who brought him up with the help of his mother Marguerite Legayhttp://www.guybourdin.org/bio/] .

During his military service in Dakar 1948 - 1949, he received his first photography training as a cadet in the French Air Force.

In 1950 he returned to Paris, where he met Man Ray, and becomes his protégé. Bourdin made several exhibitions of drawings, paintings, and photographs.

His first fashion shots was published in the February issue of Vouge France in 1955. He continued to work for the magazine until 1987.

Bourdin married Solange Marie Louise Gèze in 1961, who gave birth to his only child, Samuel in 1967. His depressed wife committed suicide by hanging in 1971, after being kept locked up in their Paris apartment by Bourdin [http://www.newstatesman.com/200304210029] .

An editor of Vogue magazine introduced Bourdin to shoe designer Roland Jourdan, who became his patron, and Bourdin shot Jourdan’s ad campaigns between 1967 and 1981. His quirky crime scene ads were greatly recognized and always muchly awaited by the media.

In 1985 Bourdin turned down the Grand Prix National de la Photographie, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture, but his name is retained on the list of awardwinners.

After his death, Guy Bourdin has been hailed as one of the greatest fashion photographers of all time, and his son Samuel Bourdin released a book with the finest prints of his father's work, called "Exhibit A" in 2001 (co-edited with Fernando Delgado). His first retrospective exhibition was held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London 2003, and then toured the National gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, and Jeu de Paume in Paris.

tyle & Themes

Bourdin was the first photographer to create a complex narrative, then snatch a moment - sensual, provocative, shocking, exotic, surrealistic, sinister - and simply associate it with a fashion item. The narratives were strange and mysterious, full of violence, sexuality, and surrealism. Bourdin was influenced by his mentor Man Ray, photographer Edward Weston, the surrealist painters Magritte and Balthus, and film maker Luis Buñuel. Even though much less well known to the public than his colleague Helmut Newton (also working for Vogue), Bourdin possibly has been more influential on the younger generations of fashion photographers [http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2003/apr/13/features.review27] .

Personal life

Guy Bourdin was a short man with a whiny voice, and had a reputation of being incredibly demanding. Dark rumours surrounded him: his mother abandoning him as an infant, the suicides of his wife and two of his girlfriends, and the cruelty in which he treated his models [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/main.jhtml?xml=/fashion/2003/04/07/efguy07.xml] . Bourdin was not a natural self-promoter, and didn't collect his work or making any attempt to preserve them; in fact he refused several offers of exhibitions, rejected ideas for books, and wanted his work destroyed after his death (but since he didn’t keep so much of his work for himself, fortunatly most of it was saved) . The first major monograph devoted to his work was the book "Exhibit A" (mentioned above), relesed ten years after his death.

Trivia

* Bourdin exhibited under the pseudonym Edwin Hallan in his early career.

* Madonna's 2003 music video for Hollywood was greatly influenced by the photography of Bourdin, so much so that a lawsuit was brought on against her by Bourdin's son for copyright infringement.

* Amongst others, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, Jean Baptiste Mondino, Nick Knight and David LaChapelle have admitted to be great admirers of his work.

* A fantastical biographical documentary program was shown for the BBC in 1991 (Dreamgirls: The photographs of Guy Bourdin). So few fashion icons like Helmut Newton and Jean-Baptiste Mondino played a crucial role talking about the way that Bourdin managed his own way to do fashion photography. In this program the spectator also can grasp the complex universe around the pictures of Bourdin.

ources

External links

* [http://www.guybourdin.org/ guybourdin.org]
* [http://www.phinnweb.org/livingroom/ILikeToWatch/guybourdin/ Guy Bourdin @ pHinnWeb]
* [http://www.madeinphoto.fr/ MADEinPHOTO.fr] Gallery of the most important photographers of the XX° century