Gregory Crewdson

(American, born 1962)

Gregory Crewdson is an American photographer best known for staging cinematic scenes of suburbia to dramatic effect. His surreal images are often melancholic, offering ambiguous narrative suggestions and blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality. Working with large production teams to scout and shoot his images, his photographs have become increasingly complex as if it were for a motion picture production, including its painstaking preparation of elaborate sets, lighting, and cast, as seen in his seminal series Beneath the Roses (2003–2008) and Twilight (1998–2001). “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 went to the State University of New York at Purchase College where he studied with Jan Groover and Laurie Simmons. In 1988, he graduated from Yale University with an MFA in photography, and since 1993 has served on its faculty, currently as the director of its graduate studies in photography. He has cited Steven Spielberg, Diane Arbus, and Edward Hopper as influences to his practice. 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. 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. The artist lives and works in New York, NY.