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Albert Watson
Albert Watson‘s work is included in the collections of, among others, The National Portrait Gallery in London and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He has also held a number of exhibitions at museums and galleries around the world. Additionally he has won numerous awards, like the Hasselblad Master Awards, The Lucie Award and a Grammy Award, to name a few.
Qvale Galleri the first gallery in Norway to exhibit photographs by Albert Watson. Watson is one of the most sought-after and successful photographers of our time. Photographic District News has voted him one of the most influential photographers of all time, alongside names such as Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.
Watson is a diverse photographer and this is reflected in the scope of his work. He has collaborated with everything and everyone, from fashion to fine art photography, from Queen Elizabeth to Mick Jagger, from movie posters to commercial films. He has also photographed over 200 covers for Vogue, and numerous other magazines, such as Rolling Stone, GQ and Time. His list of achievements also includes several book publications, including: Cyclops (1994), Maroc (1998), Albert Watson (2007), Strip Search (2010) and UFO: Unified Fashion Objectives (2010).
Watson was born in Edinburgh in 1942 and studied graphs design in Dundee, followed by film and television studies at The Royal College of Art in London. Being born blind on one eye, photography might not have seemed the easiest way to go, but he discovered a love for photography at an early age. His passion for his work is hard to ignore, and is reflected in the technical virtuosity in his work.
In 1970 Watson moved to the USA with his wife Elizabeth, and he soon managed to make a living of his photography. His real breakthrough came when he, in 1973, got the assignment to photograph the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock for Harper’s Bazaar. Watson described himself as being nervous and sweating, but the pictures turned out amazing, and the picture of Hitchcock standing with a plucked goose in his hand is now an iconic photograph. Watson himself describes the picture as “the most important shot I ever did”.
In 2014 Watson visited his home country Scotland, more specifically The Isle of Skye, to capture the unique atmosphere in this place. The result was a series of beautiful images – and a documentary produced by BBC.