These commissioned works form the heart Tim Walker: Wonderful Things, an exhibition on view at Getty from May 2 through August 20, 2023.
Building on the success of that project, the J. Paul Getty Museum asked Walker to explore its collection and embark on a 10th photo session. These newly commissioned photographs, based on two paintings in Getty’s collection, will be shown for the first time when the exhibition opens.
“For me, beauty is everything. I’m interested in breaking down the boundaries that society has created, to enable more varied types of beauty and the wonderful diversity of humanity to be celebrated,” says Tim Walker. “For the Getty commission, I was drawn to two works in the collection: Dieric Bouts’ The Annunciation and Lucas Cranach the Elder’s A Faun and his Family with a Slain Lion. These two paintings are such a brilliant parallel—to have one painter obsessed by dress and fabric, and then another depicting wild nudity. In the photographs I’ve made here, I’ve tried to marry the two, I wanted to capture the nudity of Cranach and the peace of Bouts. To create pictures that feel alive and provoke questions as these two great paintings do.”
Tim Walker: Wonderful Things pays tribute to Walker’s distinctive contribution to image-making, while also highlighting the work of his creative collaborators: set designers, stylists, make-up artists, models, and muses.
“Museums remain a vital source of inspiration for contemporary artists,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the Getty Museum. “Tim Walker’s process of delving into a museum’s collection to create evocative new works of art both provides new perspectives on our collections, and gives new stimulus to Walker’s own inventive imagery. This exhibition, in particular, showcases his creative and collaborative process and will, I am sure, inspire visitors to examine museum objects in new ways.”
Walker was born in England in 1970 and began taking photographs as a young boy. A year working in the Cecil Beaton Archive at the Condé Nast Library in London led him to study photography at Exeter College of Art. After graduating in 1994, Walker began his career as a freelance photographic assistant in London. He then relocated to New York City to work with the fashion photographer Richard Avedon. Walker shot his first story for British Vogue at the age of 25 and has been photographing for magazines ever since.
The first section of the exhibition features more than 20 photographs from Walker’s career as a fashion photographer. The following 10 sections each feature museum collection objects, photographs, short films, and photographic sets, providing a behind-the-scenes look at Walker’s creative process.
“Working with Tim Walker on this exhibition has been a fascinating and inspiring experience,” explains Paul Martineau, curator of photographs at the Getty Museum. “He has elevated the importance of certain museum objects by choosing them for this project and bringing new ways to how we think about our collections. Some of the smaller objects he chose may have been otherwise overlooked, but Walker has reframed them into a new context.”
The exhibition sections include Handle with Care, which takes inspiration from the work of the V&A’s textile conservators and highlights an Alexander McQueen gown; Why not be Oneself? features items in the V&A’s collection which once belonged to the poet Edith Sitwell. Tilda Swinton, who is a distant relative of Sitwell, is featured as she performs the role of the poet at the family’s manor house, Renishaw Hall; Pen and Ink explores blackness and the eroticism of Aubrey Beardsley’s 1890s illustrations; Illuminations was inspired by the stained glass collection at the V&A and is a kaleidoscope of glorious transparent colors; Lil’ Dragon is inspired by the V&A’s collection of intricately decorated snuffboxes; The Land of the Living Men is inspired by diverse representations of the male nude in the V&A’s collection; Soldiers of Tomorrow is Walker’s interpretation of the longest photograph, measuring 71 yards, in the V&A’s collection which depicts the Bayeux Tapestry. The photographs feature recycled, homemade, and hand-knitted objects; Cloud 9 features colorful, bright, and fantastical images inspired by the historical paintings from South Asia in the V&A’s collection; Box of Delights features images of transformation and expression which were inspired by a golden key and embroidered casket in the V&A’s collection. The section titled Out of the Woods features the lively photographs inspired by the two paintings in Getty’s collection, which will be shown alongside Walker’s new works.
The exhibition opening will be complemented by a free, hybrid program Fashion Forward: The Fantastical Visions of Tim Walker featuring Walker himself, joined by curator Susanna Brown and editor in chief of W Magazine Sara Moonves. On May 21, another panel talk celebrates the work of Walker’s contemporary fashion and portrait photographer Rodney Smith and the release of Getty publication Rodney Smith: A Leap of Faith.
Tim Walker: Wonderful Things is organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and the Getty Museum, Los Angeles. The Getty presentation is curated by Paul Martineau, curator in the Department of Photographs.
The exhibition is generously supported by City National Bank.
