BOURDIN who died in March of 1991, at the age of sixty-two is, unlike his contemporaries Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton, scarcely known to the general public; within the worlds of photography and fashion, however, he is something of a legend.

When Bourdin was at his best, as in the pages of French Vogue or in his many campaigns for Charles Jourdan shoes, he managed to imbue photographs intended for selling clothing, cosmetics, and perfume with the preternatural vividness of dreams, and he did so with stunning technical virtuosity. Philippe Garner, a senior director at Sotheby’s and a respected expert on fashion and commercial photography, says, “There had been nothing like him in the history of fashion photography. Irving Penn’s work is infused with respect for women. There’s a sexual element in Avedon, though there is a lot else going on, too. But what you see in Bourdin is the linking of two great themes, desire and death. That’s what makes the work so disturbing. It’s as if he hijacked the medium for his own personal uses. He can be as suffocatingly intimate as Diane Arbus – you feel you have to come up for air.” The photographer Albert Watson says simply, “Guy was the closest thing to a fine-art photographer that this business has produced.” – from 1994 New York Times article. Read full article here.

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