About
What I am interested in is that moment of transcendence, where one is transported into another place, into a perfect, still world.
—Gregory Crewdson
Gregory Crewdson’s photographs have entered the American visual lexicon, taking their place alongside the paintings of Edward Hopper and the films of Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch as indelible evocations of a silent psychological interzone between the everyday and the uncanny. Often working with a large team, Crewdson typically plans each image with meticulous attention to detail, orchestrating light, color, and production design to conjure dreamlike scenes infused with mystery and suspense. While the small-town settings of many of Crewdson’s images are broadly familiar, he is careful to avoid signifiers of identifiable sites and moments, establishing a world outside time.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Crewdson is a graduate of SUNY Purchase and the Yale University School of Art, where he is now director of graduate studies in photography. He lives and works in New York and Massachusetts. In a career spanning more than three decades, he has produced a succession of widely acclaimed bodies of work, from Natural Wonder (1992–97) to Cathedral of the Pines (2013–14). Beneath the Roses (2003–08), a series of pictures that took nearly ten years to complete—and which employed a crew of more than one hundred people—was the subject of the 2012 feature documentary Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, by Ben Shapiro.
Photo: Juliane Hiam © Crewdson Studio
#GregoryCrewdson
Exhibitions
Gregory Crewdson: An Eclipse of Moths
Gregory Crewdson discusses his new work with actor Cate Blanchett.
Gregory Crewdson: Cathedral of the Pines
In his latest series of large-format color photographs, Cathedral of the Pines, Crewdson takes the viewer to the forests of Becket, Massachusetts—the locale of his earliest childhood memories and his home since 2011.
Fairs, Events & Announcements
Lecture Series
Gregory Crewdson
2021 Yale Photo Pop Up Lecture Series
The Yale Photo Pop Up Lecture Series has returned for a second year. The series was started in 2020 by Gregory Crewdson, director of graduate studies in photography at the Yale School of Art, as a response to the shift to online learning. The biweekly talks feature a wide range of guest speakers, including leading figures of contemporary film and photography, announced twenty-four hours in advance of the event. In each half-hour session, Crewdson asks the guest questions about artistic practice and the anticipation of an end to the pandemic crisis. The series is free and open to the public. Space is limited and will be granted on a first-come, first-served basis.
To find out about upcoming lectures, follow @yalephoto or @crewdsonstudio on Instagram.
Still from “Yale Photo Pop Up Lecture Series presents Jeff Wall”
Lecture Series
Gregory Crewdson
2020 Yale Photo Pop Up Lecture Series
Gregory Crewdson, director of graduate studies in photography at the Yale School of Art, is opening his 2020 MFA Photography Pop Up Lecture Series to the public while the Yale campus goes online, hosting twenty-eight question-and-answer sessions with leading figures of contemporary film and photography on Zoom. Featuring a wide range of guest speakers including William Eggleston, Spike Jonze, Tilda Swinton, and Kara Walker, the series opens up a conversation about how to find artistic inspiration in this moment of great change. To watch previous talks, visit www.art.yale.edu.
Still from “Yale Photo Pop Up Lecture Series: Tilda Swinton”
Design
Namacheko and Gregory Crewdson
AW20 Collection
Belgian fashion label Namacheko is launching a new collection inspired by and featuring Gregory Crewdson’s photographs. The garments were shown for the first time at Namacheko’s fall 2020 runway show in January at Espace Niemeyer, the French Communist Party headquarters in Paris, designed by Oscar Niemeyer. The clothing will be available later this year at select retailers, including the Gagosian Shop.
Dress from Namacheko’s Autumn/Winter 2020 collection featuring an image from Gregory Crewdson’s Hover series
Museum Exhibitions
Closed
Photography’s Last Century
The Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Collection
February 17–May 21, 2023
Jepson Center, Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia
www.telfair.org
Photography’s Last Century celebrates the remarkable ascendancy of photography during the past hundred years, and Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee’s promised gift of over sixty photographs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where this exhibition originated. The collection is particularly notable for its breadth and depth of works by women artists, its sustained interest in the nude, and its focus on artists’ beginnings. Work by Gregory Crewdson, Andreas Gursky, Man Ray, Andy Warhol, and Rachel Whiteread is included.
Gregory Crewdson, Untitled, 2005 © Gregory Crewdson
Closed
Gregory Crewdson in
The Big Picture: Photography’s Moment
November 19, 2022–March 5, 2023
Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York
nassaumuseum.org
This exhibition explores the history of photography from the early black-and-white works by Ansel Adams to the contemporary large-format color works by Gregory Crewdson, from documentary to painterly.
Gregory Crewdson, Untitled, 2003 © Gregory Crewdson
Closed
Gregory Crewdson in
Critical Conversations: Art in Practice
December 9, 2022–January 23, 2023
Cleveland Institute of Art
www.cia.edu
Critical Conversations: Art in Practice is the culminating exhibition of a studio/seminar class of the same name at the Cleveland Institute of Art in which students focus on researching a single contemporary artist. At the start of the semester, students select their subjects from the Progressive Art Collection and spend the term investigating, evaluating, and reflecting on the selected artist’s practice. The capstone exhibition showcases their research alongside the work of their chosen artists. Work by Gregory Crewdson is included.
Gregory Crewdson, Untitled, 1998–2002 © Gregory Crewdson
Closed
Gregory Crewdson
Eveningside
October 12, 2022–January 22, 2023
Gallerie d’Italia, Turin, Italy
gallerieditalia.com
Gregory Crewdson’s new series of photographs, Eveningside (2021–22), comprises twenty digital pigment prints and was envisioned by the artist as the final movement in a trilogy spanning ten years of work, which includes Cathedral of the Pines (2012–14) and An Eclipse of Moths (2018–19). The eponymously titled exhibition is a survey of this body of work, as well as Crewdson’s earlier minimalist Fireflies (1996). Additionally, Making Eveningside, a behind-the-scenes video projection set to original music by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and multi-instrumentalist and composer Stuart Bogie, is on view within the museum, adjacent to the exhibition.
Installation view, Gregory Crewdson: Eveningside, Gallerie d’Italia, Turin, Italy, October 12, 2022–January 22, 2023. Artwork © Gregory Crewdson. Photo: Andrea Guermani, Gallerie d’Italia, Turin, Italy
Press
The Photography of Gregory Crewdson — And Why Cate Blanchett Is Here for It by Britt Hennemuth
Vanity Fair
October 8, 2020
Online
PDF
Gagosian Goes Netflix? The Mega-Gallery Is Creating Original Content That Pairs Artists With Luminaries Like Malcolm Gladwell and Jeff Tweedy by Sarah Cascone
Artnet
October 5, 2020
Online
PDF
Gregory Crewdson Imagines Renewal and Redemption in Latest Art Exhibition. by Jennifer Sauer
CR Fashion Book
September 29, 2020
Online
PDF
The big picture: a quiet American apocalypse by Tim Adams
The Guardian
September 20, 2020
Online
PDF
For Gregory Crewdson, Truth Lurks in the Landscape by Arthur Lubow
New York Times
August 20, 2020
Online
PDF