NYAB Event - Martin Schoeller “Portraits”

Martin Schoeller “Portraits”

Hasted Kraeutler

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Featuring a written introduction by Jeff Koons, the latest monograph is a cause for celebration and a true milestone moment for the artist. The exhibition includes a range of images of varying scale that Schoeller made over the past decade and a half, all of which confirm his position as a maestro of his craft. Viewed cumulatively in both black-and-white and color, the photographs on view prove that he has more than earned his reputation as today’s preeminent portraitist, consistently capturing characters we think we know in ways we couldn’t predict.

Renowned portraitist Martin Schoeller knows how to make a globally recognized face captivate viewers anew—as if seen for the first time. Whether political leaders, Hollywood stars, business entrepreneurs, or contemporary music royalty, from Jack Nicholson, Cate Blanchett, and Angelina Jolie to president Barack Obama, Schoeller’s mesmerizing portraits are as daring as they are exacting, playful, and precise. Theatrically conceived to communicate and express the true essence of its subject, every photograph feels as candid as it does staged: former President Bill Clinton putts off in the oval office, glancing mischievously at the camera with that signature sideways smile; a close-up of comedian-provocateur Russell Brand—lips slightly parted, wet eyes shimmering lustfully—shows a dove nesting peacefully in his perfectly tousled hair.

Martin Schoeller is informed by an inimitable compositional style and a flare for surprise that he honed while working as a contract photographer for The New Yorker and perfected over decades as a contributor to such glamorous publications as Entertainment Weekly, GQ and TIME. His method, he has explained, involves taking many, many photographs until he manages to catch his subject at an honest moment, ideally when his or her guard is down—thereby exposing in them something viewers would not otherwise witness. “The pictures that survive over the years,” he has said, “are ones where you see something of somebody that they normally wouldn’t share so easily.” Portraits brings that mantra to life, exhibiting striking examples of the artist’s signature compositional imagination alongside the wry wit that has always animated his work.