Ryan McGinley

Ryan McGinley is an American photographer best known for his snapshot aesthetic that features young nude models. Originally they typically featured a hedonistic and carefree attitude that the artist called an “evidence of fun.” McGinley’s models are usually nude, though never sexualised.

He has since become known for studio portraits and landscapes with bodies in action or lost in contemplation and also often photographs celebrities and musicians and collaborates with fashion houses and magazines.

McGinley’s approach to his work blurs the lines separating private and public, nature and studio, staged and documentary.  In much the same spirit with which he has imposed the studio upon the wild — employing cinematic lighting in his recent outdoor photography — he has introduced the wild into a type of studio setting.

In 2003, at the age of 25, he became the youngest artist in 30 years to have a solo show at the Whitney in New York. His work is featured in public collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., among others.