Along with fellow artist Hugo Claus, Harry Gruyaert tackles his conflicting emotions towards his homeland of Belgium with his trademark use of color
Harry Gruyaert
"I was living in London at the end of the 1960s when I became aware of the brainwashing power of television … I became interested in making a portrait of England by photographing the TV screen."
- Harry Gruyaert
Harry Gruyaert is known for his extraordinary photographic work with color. Born in Antwerp in 1941, he originally dreamed of becoming a film director. In the late 1970s, Pop art and a trip to Morocco inspired him to become one of the first photographers in Europe to devote his work entirely to color photography. Gruyaert’s cinematographic background instilled in him an aesthetic conception of photography. Rather than telling stories or documenting the world through his lens, he searches for beauty in everyday elements. His images are simply snapshots of magical moments in which different visual aspects, primarily color, form, light and movement, spontaneously come together in front of his lens.
A member of Magnum Photos since 1982, Gruyaert has photographed extensively in the United States, Morocco, Europe, and India. He has also taken many photographs of Belgium, his native country, which have been published in two books: Made in Belgium and Roots. His many other publications, including Morocco, Rivages, East/West, Last Call, and India, testify to his ability to work in the most diverse environments. As Gruyaert states, “For me, photography is not only a matter of composition or color, it must also talk about place and time.”
