Biography
Gregory Crewdson is an American photographer best known for staging cinematic scenes of suburbia to dramatic effect. His surreal images are often melancholic or disturbing, offering ambiguous narrative suggestions and blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, thanks to the artist’s painstaking preparation of elaborate sets, lighting, and cast, as seen in his seminal series Beneath the Roses (2003-2008). “My pictures are about a search for a moment—a perfect moment,” Crewdson has explained. Born on September 26, 1962 in Brooklyn, NY, the artist works with large production teams to scout and shoot his images. His work has been exhibited widely, notably including solo exhibitions at Gagosian Gallery in New York, the San Diego Museum of Art, and White Cube in London, among many others. A 1988 graduate of the Yale School of Art, he has served on its faculty since 1993 and is currently the director of its graduate studies in photography. In 2012, Ben Shapiro’s documentary Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival, charting Crewdon’s harrowing photographic process from beginning to end. The artist lives and works in New York, NY. His works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York among others.