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Gregory Crewdson
A definitive and comprehensive survey of the work of one of America’s best-known and most acclaimed photographers. Renowned for his melancholic, dramatic, and painterly images of small-town America, Gregory Crewdson has evolved over a nearly thirty-year career into one of the world’s most acclaimed and recognizable photographers. With a meticulous approach that has been likened to that of a film director, Crewdson typically works with a large crew and extremely technical sets to achieve a remarkably atmospheric and textured perspective. His fanatical attention to light and location creates a vision of life at once familiar and haunting; his artistic vision seems in line with those of Edward Hopper and David Lynch. Published together for the first time are images from each of his many series of work, from the little-seen black-and-white images of Fireflies to more recent masterpieces such as Beneath the Roses and Sanctuary.
With a narrative of short stories written specially to accompany each series by Jonathan Lethem, an introductory overview by Nancy Spector, and an essay by Melissa Harris on his unique process, this is the definitive monograph on the work of a true contemporary master of photography.
With a narrative of short stories written specially to accompany each series by Jonathan Lethem, an introductory overview by Nancy Spector, and an essay by Melissa Harris on his unique process, this is the definitive monograph on the work of a true contemporary master of photography.
- GenresPhotographyArt
400 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2013
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About the author
Gregory Crewdson
29 books20 followersGregory Crewdson’s photographs have entered the American visual lexicon, taking their place alongside the paintings of Edward Hopper and the films of Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch as indelible evocations of a silent psychological interzone between the everyday and the uncanny. Often working with a large team, Crewdson typically plans each image with meticulous attention to detail, orchestrating light, color, and production design to conjure dreamlike scenes infused with mystery and suspense. While the small-town settings of many of Crewdson’s images are broadly familiar, he is careful to avoid signifiers of identifiable sites and moments, establishing a world outside time.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Crewdson is a graduate of SUNY Purchase and the Yale University School of Art, where he is now director of graduate studies in photography. He lives and works in New York and Massachusetts. In a career spanning more than three decades, he has produced a succession of widely acclaimed bodies of work, from Natural Wonder (1992–97) to Cathedral of the Pines (2013–14). Beneath the Roses (2003–08), a series of pictures that took nearly ten years to complete—and which employed a crew of more than one hundred people—was the subject of the 2012 feature documentary Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, by Ben Shapiro.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Crewdson is a graduate of SUNY Purchase and the Yale University School of Art, where he is now director of graduate studies in photography. He lives and works in New York and Massachusetts. In a career spanning more than three decades, he has produced a succession of widely acclaimed bodies of work, from Natural Wonder (1992–97) to Cathedral of the Pines (2013–14). Beneath the Roses (2003–08), a series of pictures that took nearly ten years to complete—and which employed a crew of more than one hundred people—was the subject of the 2012 feature documentary Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, by Ben Shapiro.
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February 21, 2020
I have been a fan of Gregory Crewdson for years, ever since I discovered his book Beneath the Roses. I became enthralled with artist Crewdson's surreal cinematic-type photographs. He brings a dark and disquieting look to his work that I find unique and unsettling, so I then followed that photography book with Cathedral Of The Pines and Dream of Life, and now with this large coffee-style book that spans his work from the late 1980s through 2013.
In this definitive collection of his work, the book opens with chapter Early Work that promises the later work that he will become famous for. We see staged pictures that often show the banality of suburban life, and a preface of a quote by author Raymond Carver reinforces this. We then move to Natural Wonder, still-life pictures that combine that artificially of suburbia with the natural world, and the moody chapters Hover and Twilight which present contrived but fascinating pictures. I was surprised at Dream House, a small collection of twelve pictures that had famous actors such as Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, Gwyneth Paltrow, William H. Macy, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in them. They photographed against type, as their celebrity was juxtaposed against the anonymous locations of Crewdson's sets. I found the chapter Fireflies to be uninteresting and atypical to his usual work. I was familiar with Beneath The Roses but his last chapter Sanctuary was new to me and reminded me of another photographer I like, Matthew Christopher of Abandoned America.
I could have done without the odd essays by Jonathan Lethem as openings to each chapter, but I found Melissa Harris's longer article at the end illuminating. Crewdson's unique photographic compositions make him a singular artist, and I am never disappointed by his work as I spend time creating my own scenarios from the images in front of me, so I will continue to seek out his work.
In this definitive collection of his work, the book opens with chapter Early Work that promises the later work that he will become famous for. We see staged pictures that often show the banality of suburban life, and a preface of a quote by author Raymond Carver reinforces this. We then move to Natural Wonder, still-life pictures that combine that artificially of suburbia with the natural world, and the moody chapters Hover and Twilight which present contrived but fascinating pictures. I was surprised at Dream House, a small collection of twelve pictures that had famous actors such as Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, Gwyneth Paltrow, William H. Macy, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in them. They photographed against type, as their celebrity was juxtaposed against the anonymous locations of Crewdson's sets. I found the chapter Fireflies to be uninteresting and atypical to his usual work. I was familiar with Beneath The Roses but his last chapter Sanctuary was new to me and reminded me of another photographer I like, Matthew Christopher of Abandoned America.
I could have done without the odd essays by Jonathan Lethem as openings to each chapter, but I found Melissa Harris's longer article at the end illuminating. Crewdson's unique photographic compositions make him a singular artist, and I am never disappointed by his work as I spend time creating my own scenarios from the images in front of me, so I will continue to seek out his work.
Displaying 1 of 1 review