Renowned photographer Gregory Crewdson's work is a photographic genre all of his own, seamlessly weaving the narratives of everyday people's lives into the cinematic aesthetic of a Hollywood set.
After his start in the mid-1980s, he has culminated a huge body of work, now celebrated in his first retrospective exhibition and accompanying catalog book. Gregory Crewdson by Gregory Crewdson is edited and authored by Walter Moser, the head of photography at The Albertina Museum in Vienna, and published by Prestel, a leading publisher of art, design, and architecture books (for more in this vein see our guide to the best coffee table books).
Taking his visual cues and inspiration from cinema and artistic tableaux, Crewdson's approach is a cross between a movie director and a painter. He creates highly detailed sets with actors, a crew of people, and floodlighting much like a Hollywood set, but of course, captures the story in a single frame.
Prestel says, "Gregory Crewdson brings together nine groups of work that unfolds as a tender meditation on the American Dream deferred. Conceived serially, the retrospective charts the artist's formal and conceptual explorations over the last three and a half decades, creating an intricate map of obsessions, fears, and desires that lurk just beneath the surface".
Gregory Crewdson features over 300 photographs from his best-known series, including older works such as Twilight (1998–2002) and Beneath the Roses (2003-2008), as well as the more recent trilogy Cathedral of the Pines (2013–2014), An Eclipse of Moths (2018–2019), and Eveningside (2021-2022).
Although the images work as stand-alone pieces, seeing the projects in their entirety enhances the experience and engrosses the viewer in the subjects' lives in his signature eerie way.
In addition to the breathtaking images, the catalog also features behind-the-scenes production stills taken between 1991-2022 and expertly written texts, offering a full chronology of Crewdson's life and work.
It is in these production shots that you can truly appreciate the amount of work that is put into a single photograph, as alluded to earlier, an approach more akin to a painter than a photographer.
Above: A fantastic video about the retrospective by The Albertina Museum
This catalog has been created to accompany the major exhibition now on display at The Albertina Museum in Vienna (May 29 – September 8, 2024). Gregory Crewdson's large images are a sight to behold in person and elevate the work even more so, but for those not able to attend, the book provides the same feeling.
Gregory Crewdson by Walter Moser is available now in the UK and August 15 in the US, for $60 / £45 (Australian pricing to be confirmed).
You may also be interested in our guides to the best coffee table books, the best books on photography, and the best books on portrait photography.
