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Guy BOURDIN - French Vogue, 1977
Old Authentic Original Drawing Offset print
Size: 22.4 cm x 26.7 cm
Beautiful Famous photo! Iconic!!!
This is a print that the printer had archived as a reference model and laminated on a support in order to be able to preserve it over time.
A wonderful testimony to fine art printing which unfortunately has completely disappeared today.
Magnificent print, close to a photograph, very shiny, contrasted and luminous, with colors of a beautiful density.
Its rendering as well as its definition with sharp details, are absolutely remarkable.
Print made in 1999 by a former art printer Archival Model Printer four-color printing enhanced with a glossy varnish
This unpublished print was found in the depths of an assembly workshop in the archive lockers of a former art printing works, preciously kept flat and protected from light in an envelope. Although it is old with its 24 years of age, it has remained in a good state of conservation. Presence of traces of dirt and marks on the back due to manipulations by the printer. On the other hand, the front is intact, in perfect condition and of a remarkable shine.
This copy was kept by the printer in order to serve as a reference for its setting and coloring on the machine during reprints.
In 1977 for the magazine Vogue French version, Guy Bourdin places one of his models like a Christ hanging on a cross, it is a woman and not a man that he hangs for the time of a photograph, with another at his feet supporting her, in this image he imposes his great art, in a scene where everything is played out, a scene coming straight from his vital obscurity of creativity and his deepest inspiration.
From the beginning of the 1950s, Guy Bourdin took photographs for Vogue magazine, placing top models in the middle of calf's heads, a dish of sauerkraut or even ice cream cones. He spends hours on the detail of an image and does not want his photos to be kept in a simple shoebox. It is thanks to Vogue magazine that he takes advantage of doing a kind of personal therapy, of revealing all his obsessions that he can make possible through his profession. Later, Madonna, adoring her work will even go so far as to plagiarize some of her images, as in her 2003 Hollywood clip.
He gives a photographic reading with expressionist accents, sometimes bordering on abstraction. He never stops experimenting to always go further, in order to go beyond the borders of photography, producing images of another galaxy that go beyond established conventions, he is always ahead, ahead of and upsets all the codes of the time. He has as much fun with the elements as his subjects, destabilizes, disorients, erases landmarks, producing scenes with a new, elegant and original look.
“I try to let this imperceptible thing that is the lens act independently when it comes face to face with its subject. » Guy Bourdin
It was his campaigns for shoemaker Charles Jourdan that revealed him to the general public and marked a long collaboration with the house. The brand's products are not very apparent, as if he adds them after the fact. A shoe becomes an insignificant element in a very elaborate theatrical production.
In his images, he blurs the tracks, those of fashion, where in an instant everything is played out in a composition straight from the vital darkness of creativity and the deepest inspiration. His narration is reduced to the simplest terms and yet he tells a story in his photographs, he projects us into a scene, without any clues, creating an atmosphere that is both disturbing and fascinating that cannot exist in reality. Permanent tension and formal perfection are his signature which offers no solution to his enigmas, it is beauty and aesthetics that he photographs.
In the vast majority of his images, he establishes associations between surrealism and film noir, with surrealism he shares a certain irony and a sense of paradox, of the absurd, as well as a predilection for details in a perfectly orchestrated, films noirs, he adopts a taste for suspense, mixed with a sensuality between glamor and eroticism.
Dresses, clothes, shoes, cosmetics, jewelry, he uses them as evidence in a news story, fetishized, his photographs interpose, held by the model, by displacements and shifts, mirror scenes create spaces which intersperse to give complex images, which separate the desire and the desired object, the commodity body, the product to be sold are kept at a distance.
With images of an unprecedented plastic force, Guy Bourdin imposes himself in the fashion press, for other advertising campaigns intended for the shoemaker Roland Pierre, or for the lingerie designer Bloomingsdale's.
He knows how to stage objects brilliantly, he hijacks them, installs a certain mystery, where no one can tell what is happening, that's what he is looking for in a photograph, to leave doubt, he pushes the spectator to ask questions, to discover the matrix, of what happened in the space of his photo.
He is next to Helmut Newton, a real artistic dictator, the woman is powerful, she walks towards the camera, staring at the lens as if to defy him with her gaze, she smiles little, but does so in a sardonic way, her models are young and mischievous like mechanical dolls taking all the positions imposed by the photographer, with ubiquitous make-up and striking lipstick, giving them the appearance of perfectly painted toys that Bourdin transforms into a fashion pastiche. Guy Boudin is the only photographer to have developed a work of millimeter coherence while striving to make it elusive, ephemeral, never visible as a whole, as if he wanted it to self-destruct after his death.
“A photograph steals your soul. » Guy Bourdin
He was then at the height of his technical mastery, and the films made during the shooting sessions clearly show the intensity of his research, both visual and emotional, he notably used the principle of mise en abîme in his compositions. Although he uses black and white, he flourishes with color, his images are as if traced with a pen, larded by garish and powerful colors which illuminate the situation created, the pictorial radicalism of the photographer asserting itself definitively, giving birth to his inimitable style.
Its design demonstrates that it is not the designated product that attracts the consumer but the imagery that carries it, produced by staging a sensual story promoting fantasies, by an illustration of inaccessible dreams. His photographs are very polished, starkly lit and extremely strong. The models sometimes pose in provocative and often uncomfortable positions, in claustrophobic settings. The taste for framing, the saturation of colors, tinted by a multitude of tones are omnipresent and the use of mannequins refers to the seventh art. The ensuing mystery is reminiscent of David Lynch's films, aesthetically close to perfection, never crystal clear in substance.
His work deals with life, he knew before anyone else that sex and violence were going to become the most important factors in our society. But what interests him most is wanting to describe life. No photographer before him and certainly no other with such talent, has ever managed to combine the beauty of an accessory, a pair of shoes, a hat or even an item of clothing.
His work is characterized by disturbing images, often provocative and mysterious, which have introduced a radical change in the way of approaching advertising campaigns in the field of fashion. Never like in the work of Guy Bourdin, photographer and painter, friend of Man Ray, the models seem to evoke pop objects, reduced to pieces by an acute fantasy.
Provocative, sensual or elusive, the women of Bourdin are immersed in a universe close to surrealism, the bizarre, a raw beauty, with an ultra sharp aesthetic. He makes them live and sweat through the image. Some of his photographs are constructed as crime scene snapshots, such as those immortalized by American photographer Arthur Weegee, who followed New York police officers on accidents and crimes, this is what Guy Bourdin adapts in his work , except that his victims are always women.
He affirms through his shots that the image is stronger than the motif, he forges a visual morality that allows him to break the locks of frivolity, glamor and decoration. It then remains for him to operate his factory of ideas, he becomes the author of highly sophisticated stagings, suggesting a story of rare complexity. He does not take photos, he makes images, paintings.
Following in the footsteps of Man Ray, Guy Bourdin's approach adopted a work that subsequently influenced many photographers, such as Jean Baptiste Mondino and David LaChapelle.
Guy Bourdin (1928-1991) French photographer, born Guy Louis Banarès in Paris. He will be abandoned by his mother a year after his birth and adopted by Maurice Désiré Bourdin, who will then take care of his education. From 1948 to 1949, he will be trained in photography during his military service, in the air force in Dakar, Senegal.
In 1950, back to civilian life, he exhibited his drawings and paintings in a Parisian gallery. In 1951, he will meet the painter and photographer Man Ray with whom he will become friends. In 1952, at the gallery 29, rue de Seine in Paris, Guy Bourdin held his first photographic exhibition, with a catalog prefaced by Man Ray. In 1953 and 1954, he again exhibited his photographs as well as his drawings under the pseudonym of Edwin Hallan. At the start of his career, he was quickly encouraged by Michel de Brunhoff, editor-in-chief of “Vogue France”. His first photos will be published in the February 1955 issue of Vogue, then under the direction of Edmonde Charles-Roux, struck by the images that the young photographer had presented to him, said about him: "He looked like a a schoolboy, and his shots of naked men and women, showing only their backs or posteriors to the camera. The chosen subject was far from what could have interested "Vogue", but the quality of the work was exceptional. Touched by the talent of the young man, he will be hired and will very quickly become the official photographer of "Vogue". Guy Bourdin's first series of photography will be a subject on hats, the first image presented a Balenciaga hat with a small veil, with on the face of the model a dead fly but which seemed very alive. Other images will be taken in a butcher's shop, the model and her hat posing in front of calves' heads with their tongues hanging out. Bourdin will then work for the magazine "Vogue" for 30 years, until 1987.
He will become a recognized photographer in the world of fashion and advertising. His advertising campaigns for Charles Jourdan, from 1967 to 1981, will make him known to the general public. In 1961, Guy Bourdin will marry Solange Gèze and will have a son, Samuel in 1967. In 1967, he will collaborate with the magazine "Harper's Bazaar" and his photos will be published in the very young magazine "Photo". In 1972 he worked for the version of "Vogue Italia" and "English Vogue" in 1974.
He will also sign regular publications for "Marie-Claire, or even "Biba", and will carry out numerous advertising campaigns for Charles Jourdan, Gianfranco Ferré, Claude Montanta, Chanel.
In 1985, finding it totally useless, he refused the Grand Prix National de la Photographie awarded to him by the Minister of Culture. On the other hand in 1988, Bourdin will accept with the sponsorship of Annie Leibovitz, the "Infinity Award" awarded by the "International Center of Photography" in New York, for his 1987 advertising campaign for the Chanel brand.
Less known than William Klein or Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin sticks to the same surrealist movement. Worthy heir to Man Ray, whose assistant and friend he was in the early 1950s, the photographer speaks about his concern for perfection, his desire to mix dream and reality, from his first shots. The extreme sensuality of the images mixed with surreal stagings has revolutionized the field of fashion photography. A great fashion and advertising photographer, Guy Bourdin marked the photography of the 60s and 70s with legendary images. He cared little for his aura, even less for his heritage, and lived in complete anonymity.
Many of his photos, such as Madonna's "Hollywood" clip, will be directly inspired by his work.
“I don't take photographs, I make images. » Guy Bourdin
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thanks a lot to the following photographers
Edward Weston
Daido Moriyama
Araki
Josef Koudelka
Saul Leiter
Ray K Metzker
Paolo Roversi
Helmut Newton,
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Ernst Haas
Harry Gruyaert
Annie Leibovitz
Peter Lindbergh
Guy Bourdin
Richard Avedon
Herb Ritts,
Ellen Von Unwerth
Comme des Garçons
Rei Kawakubo
Irving Penn,
Bruce Weber,
Edward Steichen,
George Hoyningen-Huene,
Hiro,
Erwin Blumenfeld
Bruce Weber,
Alex Webb
Robert Frank
Issey Miyake
Robert Doisneau
Steve Hiett
Gueorgui Pinkhassov
Andy Warhol
Yayoi Kusama
Magnum photos
Harry Callahan
Andre Kertesz
Elliott Erwitt
Bruce Davidson
Guy Bourdin
Steven Meisel,