I first came across Thomas Struth last year when I attended his exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.
I don't automatically associate portraits with Struth thinking more of his industrialised shots of factories or his Paradise series, but on a recent visit to the National Portrait Gallery some of his portraits were on display. I believe at least one of these portraits were also on display at the Whitechapel Gallery.
His family portraits consist of The Bernstein Family who were friends of Struth and this portrait was taken in 1990 on the occasion of Mrs Bernstein's birthday. Struth's rule when shooting portraits is that each person should look into the camera and often they should arrange and position themselves for the portrait.
Included in this display too is a portrait of The Smith Family from Fife. In the late 80s Struth was working in Edinburgh when he started to take portraits. This shot is a typical family portrait of the photographer spanning three generations with age as the significant aspect of the relationship between the individuals.
As always his colours are strong and rich, his subjects don't give too much away. Is this because they concentrate too much on looking into the camera? We learn more about his subjects from the way the position themselves in a group to be photographed and the environment they are shot in.
The black and white portrait of The Hirose Family is also included in this display and we can tell a little about this family from the setting - Mr Hirose's study with his collection of African sculpture in the background.
Most recently he shot the Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh for a collection for the National Portrait Gallery for her Diamond Jubilee. However this was no longer on display when I visited but the New Yorker has an interesting article on it.
No comments:
Post a Comment