Quote: "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 joined Magnum Photos in 1981 and became a full Member in 1986.

Harry Gruyaert
Belgian b. 1941

For more than thirty years, from Belgium to Morocco, and from India to Egypt, Harry Gruyaert has been recording the subtle chromatic vibrations of Eastern and Western light.

Gruyaert studied at the School for Photo and Cinema in Brussels from 1959 to 1962. He then began freelance fashion and advertising work in Paris, while working as a director of photography for Flemish television.


In 1969 Gruyaert made the first of many trips to Morocco. His total immersion in its colors and landscapes won him the Kodak Prize in 1976 and culminated in the publication of the book Morocco in 1990. He traveled to India for the first time in 1976 and to Egypt in 1987. Far from indulging in stereotypical exoticism, Gruyaert has a vision of faraway countries that locates the viewer within peculiar and somewhat impenetrable atmospheres.

In a different sphere he covered the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. In the same year he photographed some of the first Apollo flights as they were shown on a crazy television set. This project, which exploits the colors of the screen, appeared under the title 'TV Shots' in Zoom. It was shown at the Delpire Gallery in 1974 and at Phillips de Pury & Co. in New York.

Gruyaert joined Magnum Photos in 1981. His book Made in Belgium was published in 2000, Rivages, a collection of portraits of shores around the world, in 2003, PhotoPoche in 2006, and TV Shots in 2007.

In his later work Gruyaert has abandoned the Cibachrome process in favor of digital print. Better suited to revealing the rich shades found in his films, digital print opens new possibilities for his work, bringing it one step closer to his original intention, namely to give color the means to assert its true existence.

Awards

1976 Kodak Prize

Exhibitions

2006 Morocco - Leica Gallery, Frankfurt, Germany
2006 Rivages - Foundacion Caixa Galicia Lugo and Vigo, Spain
2004 Parcours - Projection Rencontres de la photographie d’Arles, France
2003/04 Rivages - Rencontres de la photographie d’Arles, France; Galerie St-Père,
Paris, France
2002 Morocco - Carlos de Amberes Foundation, Madrid, Spain (tour exhibit in
Spain)
1999 Made in Belgium - Gallery Fnac, Brussels, Belgium
1999 Laumont Editions gallery, New York, USA
1998 Lumières blanches - Fotofest, Houston, USA; Gallery Mistral, Montreal
Canada
1997 Morocco - Andersen Consulting, Paris, France
1995 Morocco - tour exhibit in several french cultural centers in Morroco
1990 Harry Gruyaert Fotografías - Canal de Isabel II, Madrid, Spain
1986 Lumières blanches - Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
1980 Made in Belgium - Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium
1978/80 Morocco - Delpire Gallery, Paris, France; International Culture Center, Anvers,
Belgium; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium ; Franska Institutet, Stockholm,
Sweden
1974/76 TV Shots - Delpire Gallery, Paris, France; Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, Belgium;
International Center of Photography,
New York, USA

Books

2006 Photo Poche, Actes Sud, France
2003 Rivages, Textuel, France
2000 Made in Belgium, Nathan/Delpire, France
1990 Morocco, Schirmer & Mosel, Germany, France, USA
1986 Lumières Blanches, Centre National de la Photographie, France