Guy Bourdin (French, 1928–1991) was a fashion photographer who worked mainly in colour and contributed to French Vogue from 1955 into the 1980s. His images staged strange narratives in which the fashion product appeared almost incidental. He combined Surrealist influences with glaring, saturated and clashing colour.
Bourdin was born in Paris. He met Man Ray in 1950 and became his protégé. Man Ray wrote the introduction to the catalogue of Bourdin's first photography exhibition, held at Galerie 29 in Paris in 1952. His first fashion photographs appeared in French Vogue in 1955. In the 1970s his pictures for French Vogue and his campaigns for Charles Jourdan rejected the typical product shot in favour of unsettling staged scenes. In one image, the detached lower legs of a mannequin wearing the featured shoes climb a flight of stairs. He planned his compositions to suit the format of the printed page. The designer John Morgan admired how his Paris Vogue photographs respected the magazine's gutter.
