Photo: Galway, Ireland, 1988 © Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos
At the age of 20, Harry Gruyaert decided to pursue photography, and he never looked back, leaving his native Belgium in pursuit of a life in Paris. In 1962, he left his hometown of Antwerp, Belgium, with the dream of becoming an assistant for the illustrious William Klein. After meeting both Klein and Jeanloup Sieff, Gruyaert realized he would be better served going into business for himself. He began a career shooting fashion photography.
This noble and realistic issue, with many practitioners can relate, became the driving force for a career in photography that set Gruyaert apart from his contemporaries. By taking commercial commissions from corporate clients, Gruyaert had the freedom and space necessary to develop his relationship to the medium. In the 1970s and 80, Gruyaert revolutionized the creative and experimental uses of color, staking out new territory previously unexplored. Gruyaert’s emotive, non-narrative, and boldly graphic point of view reveal his work as that of a dynamic radical. He later went on to join Magnum Photo in 1982, and has worked with them ever since.
Spa hotel, Ostend, Belgium, 1988 © Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos
Harry Gruyaert (Thames & Hudson) is the first retrospective of his work. Featuring a Foreword by François Hébel and an afterword by Richard Nonas, the monograph is beautifully sequenced and produced, presenting the photographs in their full splendor. The book includes 87 works taken between 1972-2012. The earliest work dates back to Gruyaert time in London, when he created the striking series TV Shots by turning the dial on the television at random and photographing the distorted images he saw there. The effect is raw, compelling yet disturbing, for it becomes increasingly emblematic through the process of iterating itself. By looking at looking, Gruyaert asks us to see in an entirely new way.
Les Halles, Paris, France, 1985 © Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos
As Gruyaert told Hébel, “Color is more physical than black and white, more intellectual and more abstract. With a black and white photograph, you generally want to know what’s going on between the subjects. With color, you should be immediately affected by the different shades that express a situation.” Indeed, this is what Gruyaert’s photographs do best—they provoke a physical reaction. Their intensity seems fresh and full of delight, like a field of flowers in a meadow or a sun setting in the evening sky. Gruyaert’s use of color reminds us of the power of Nature to transcend the linguistic plane and take us to a higher state of being, making each photograph an object of pure pleasure and contemplation.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
