Guy Bourdin, By Alison M Gingeras

Guy Bourdin is acknowledged to have revolutionised 20th-century fashion photography through the playful but rigorously formalist, frequently surreal, and sometimes even rather haunting work he did in French Vogue from 1955 to 1987, as well as through ad campaigns he did for Christian Dior, Bloomingdales and Charles Jourdan. He influenced a generation of his peers and left an indelible mark on visual culture. But, in this small new monograph, Alison Gingeras also makes the case that he was "a courageous single artist, as opposed to a mere commercial photographer". Shown left is Chapeaux-Choc (Hat Shocker), from Vogue Paris, 1955 – hat by Claude Saint-Cyr.