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Harry GRUYAERT - Moscow, 1989

Old Authentic Original Drawing Offset print

Beautiful Famous photo!

This is a print that the printer had archived as a color reference model and laminated on a support in order to be able to preserve it over time.

A wonderful testimony to traditional fine art printing

which unfortunately has completely disappeared today.

Remarkable print, close to a photograph, brilliant, very luminous, with colors of a beautiful density.

Its contrasting rendering, as well as its definition with sharp details, are absolutely magnificent.

Print made in 2000 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This unpublished print was found in the depths of an assembly workshop in the archive lockers of a former art printing works, preciously kept flat and protected from light. Although it is old with its 23 years of age, it has remained in a good state of conservation. Presence of some traces of dirt on the back and slight marks due to the manipulations of the printer during reprints. 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.

Size: 27cm x 17.8cm

In the 1980s, Harry Gruyaert began his work in his home town of Antwerp, stating that it was in Belgium that he took his time to discover the colour, the bright and pale lights which dominate and are now part of his color chart which he then applies while exploring other countries.

For him, a place is always different from the others, because it sums up everything, these elements that blend together, are extreme points, where the colors are graphic, places in which he walks, stops, thinks and photographs, that day in 1989, he finds himself in front of a window of a Moscow locksmith's shop, where a couple, waiting for customers, takes the time to live, alone in the middle of the urban jungle made of signs and elements.

His goal is to explore color, as in this image, in which he is placed outside recording a scene of Edward Hopper-like solitude, a multitude of keys under colored lights that seem to become unreal, image come from another planet, with a sharp black, shearing the elements, a vision where he asserts his influence of painting, in his photographs, he is able to obtain on his film the rendering of a hyperrealism canvas like that of an impressionist canvas.

“Color is more physical than black and white, more intellectual and abstract. In front of a black and white photo, we want to understand more what is happening between the characters. With color one must be immediately affected by the different tones that express a situation. »Harry Gruyaert

These large black areas are for him the way to designate reality, to slice it, to sculpt in the manner of Matisse and his scissors in his large blue, red, green sheets. The shadow, the black, is a bit like Matisse's scissors in Harry Gruyaert's eye.

"Reality looks like a Picasso collage whose elements were not made to be put together, but which, suddenly juxtaposed, mean and say something original and very strong, elusive before. »Harry Gruyaert

Harry Gruyaert, establishes a dialogue, between what and what is not, the sought and the guessed, between black and color. It is these last two that really structure the image. The color is not a simple form, it is for the photographer builder of the photographic space.

His shots are composed by the color that punctuates the image, as much as by the use of lines of force. The color constitutes the totality of the photo, it is a form of language which tries to establish a correspondence of the environment which is sometimes counterbalanced in other images by large flat black areas. It is then that we notice what we do not see, the blackness of his photo. He is a photographer of light, of these improbable games between deep shadows and saturated lights, a black coming to shear his photo.

“I am interested in the banality of everyday life, objects as much as humans. »Harry Gruyaert

This pleasure of color, he finds it at the beginning in his country, from the 1970s, he feels the need to work in Belgium, returning there after each trip, he first photographs in black and white, but the colors impose themselves on him, become evident. In these northern regions, he pursues the light. A heavy sky, a garland of yellow and orange light bulbs create a nostalgic atmosphere, like the interior of the thermal baths in the city of Ostend, which are literally illuminated by a low-angled yellow sun.

He is one of the most gifted colorists, never missing the opportunity to achieve a chromatic combination. A single look is enough for him to detect the mystery in an everyday scene, his photography transforms reality into narrative fiction. He squares and adds the colors, it's a whole color chart, lit by a grazing light, in his work he is able to obtain on the film as much the rendering of a hyperrealism canvas as that of an impressionist canvas.

He develops an exceptional work entirely dedicated to light and color, but he is always attracted by the edge, this segmented space which separates the charged skies, privileges the light on the subjects. He reveals a deeply singular character in his work and underlines the poetic act that underlies it, the brilliance of the moment and of chance, a sensual elegance in his images carried by a flawless composition.

He claims to be a photographer and nothing more, he leaves the public, if they wish, the leisure to qualify him as an artist, a genius of color, he does not claim either aesthetic recipes, or incredible processes, but only a purely instinctive and intuitive personal work, guided by chance, the coherence of which initially escapes him and sometimes only reveals itself many years later.

Gruyaert, far from indulging in stereotyped exoticism, knows how to record the subtle chromatic vibrations of lights both in the West and in the East, he restores a vision of near and far countries, the importance for him is an atmosphere of places simple or those of large metropolises, particular and somewhat impenetrable.

“I am a very nervous person who thrives on tension. By definition, reality is constantly in motion and I watch for the moment when this something will happen that makes the image happen. »Harry Gruyaert

In his graphic universe, time stands still, the boredom of airport halls replicating in the depopulated cafes and lounges of Malmö, Moscow, Las Vegas or Ostend. Its skies are immense, completely empty or full of rolling and threatening clouds. He is not very interested in the human figure, even if the human is often present in his images, he is from behind like a woman in the street whose green coat recalls that of the stems of bouquets thrown on a trash can. The figure can be cut out by the shadow, like the customer leaning on a Parisian bar.

He photographs colors, it is a way of perceiving the world, it is for him his means of expression, it translates and builds his quest for knowledge and sensuality. Along with the Americans, Saul Leiter, Stephen Shore, Joel Meyerowitz and William Eggleston, he is one of the rare European pioneers to give color a purely creative dimension.

"I don't like to stick to one specific thing. »Harry Gruyaert

Harry Gruyaert (1941) Belgian photographer, born in Antwerp. He has been a member of the Magnum Photos agency since 1981. He studied at the School of Photos and Cinema in Brussels from 1959 to 1962. He began photography as a freelancer in fashion and worked in Paris as an advertiser, at the same time he is director of photography for Flemish television. In 1969, Gruyaert made the first of his many trips to Morocco, which revealed his fascination for light, colors and landscapes with his photographs. He won the Kodak prize in 1976. He covered the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972 and the same year he photographed the Apollo flights on a television screen, manipulating the colors. He continued to travel to India in 1976 and to Egypt in 1987.

Far from indulging in stereotyped exoticism, Gruyaert has a vision of distant countries where he locates the viewer in particular and somewhat impenetrable atmospheres.

For more than thirty years, from Belgium to Morocco, from India to Egypt and from Vietnam to Yemen Harry, he has recorded the subtle chromatic vibrations of Eastern and Western lights but is also interested in atmosphere of large metropolises.

His interest in the hypnotic power of television dates back to the 1960s and led him to analyze the problems of color and its construction of the image. In his latest work Gruyaert abandoned the Cibachrome process in favor of digital printing. Better suited to revealing the richness of tones found in his films, digital printing opens up new possibilities for his work. He continues his initial quest, namely to give color as a means of affirming his real existence.

A photograph exists when it takes shape through the print. »Harry Gruyaert

Sale as is, no return.

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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

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Harry Callahan

Andre Kertesz

Elliott Erwitt

Bruce Davidson

Guy Bourdin

Steven Meisel,