Guy Bourdin
About
Born in Paris, France on December 2, 1928, Guy Bourdin has created many pioneering works during his thirty plus years career.
Pushing the boundaries of fashion photography, his works continue to be a source of inspiration. Bourdin was an unpredictable, multi-disciplinary artist with the eye and vision of a painter. With a surreal aesthetic, breaking off from traditional commercial photography through images, which at times are passionate, other times traumatic, he prefers for the audience to fantasize the story behind the photograph rather than openly reveal it. Guy Bourdin, whose provocative, flashy, avant-garde works place him among the most influential fashion photographers of the 20th century, had his first painting and drawing exhibition in Paris in 1950. In 1952, Bourdin’s photographs were exhibited for the first time at Gallerie 29 in Paris, in which the foreword of the
catalogue for this show was written by Man Ray. His first fashion photograph was published in the February 1955 edition of Vogue.
Guy Bourdin died on March 29, 1991.
The artist’s works have been exhibited in many important institutions such as The J. Paul Getty Museum (USA); MoMA (USA); SFMoMA (USA); Victoria and Albert Museum (UK); National Portrait Gallery (UK); Palais Galliera (France); International Centre of Photography - ICP (USA); Museum of Fine Arts (USA); Musée de l’Élysée (Switzerland) and Tate Modern (UK).