Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson (born September 26, 1962) is an American photographer. He photographs tableaux of American homes and neighborhoods.

Crewdson in 2007

Crewdson was born in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. He attended John Dewey High School, graduating early.

As a teenager, he was part of a punk rock group called The Speedies that hit the New York scene. Their song, "Let Me Take Your Photo" proved to be prophetic to Crewdson's future career. In 2005, Hewlett Packard used the song in advertisements to promote its digital cameras.

In the mid 1980s, Crewdson studied photography at SUNY Purchase, near Port Chester, NY. He received his Master of Fine Arts from Yale University. He has taught at Sarah Lawrence, Cooper Union, Vassar College, and Yale University, where he has been on the faculty since 1993. He is now a professor at the Yale University School of Art. In 2012, he was the subject of the feature documentary film Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters.

Crewdson is represented by Gagosian Gallery worldwide and by White Cube Gallery in London.

Untitled photo from Crewdson's series Beneath the Roses (2003–2005)

Crewdson's photographs usually take place in small-town America, but are dramatic and cinematic. They feature often disturbing, surreal events. His photographs are elaborately staged and lit using crews familiar with motion picture production and lighting large scenes using motion picture film equipment and techniques. He has cited the films Vertigo, The Night of the Hunter, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blue Velvet, and Safe as having influenced his style, as well as the painter Edward Hopper and photographer Diane Arbus.

• Yale University Art Gallery; New Haven, Connecticut (1988)
• BlumHelman Warehouse; New York (traveled to Portland School of Art, Portland, Maine; Ruth Bloom Gallery, Los Angeles, California) (1991)
• Houston Center for Photography; Houston, Texas (1992)
• Feigen Gallery; Chicago, Illinois (1993)
• Palm Beach Community College Museum of Art; Palm Beach, Florida (1994)
• Galleri Charlotte Lund; Stockholm, Sweden (1995)
• Les Images du Plaisir, Frac des Pays de la Loire, Galerie des Carmes; La Flèche, France (1995)
• Jay Jopling / White Cube; London (1995)
• Ginza Artspace, Shiseido Co.; Tokyo, Japan (1996)
• Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art; Cleveland, Ohio (1997)
• Espacio Uno, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; Madrid, Spain (traveled to Salamanca in 1999) (1998)
• Kulturhuset; Stockholm, Sweden (2011)
• Gregory Crewdson: In a Lonely Place, C/O Berlin; Berlin, Germany (traveled to Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen, Denmark in 2011/2012) (2011)

• ""Gregory Crewdson: In a Lonely Place" at Det Kongelige bibliotek". Retrieved 28 Dec 2011. 
• ""Gregory Crewdson: In a Lonely Place" at C/O Berlin". Retrieved 23 August 2011. 

• Hover: Artspace Books, 1995, ISBN 1891273000
• Twilight: Photographs by Gregory Crewdson, with essay by Rick Moody: Harry N. Abrams, 2003, ISBN 0810910039
• Gregory Crewdson: 1985–2005: Hatje Cantz, 2005, ISBN 377571622X
• Gregory Crewdson: Fireflies: Skarstedt Fine Art, 2007, ISBN 0970909055
• Beneath the Roses, with Russell Banks: Harry N. Abrams, 2008, ISBN 978-0810993808
• Sanctuary, with Anthony O. Scott: Hatje Cantz, 2010, ISBN 978-3775727341
• In a Lonely Place: Hatje Cantz, 2011, ISBN 978-3775731362
• Gregory Crewdson: New York, NY: Rizzoli, 2013, ISBN 978-0847840915