Bruce Gilden: A Closer Look

Reframing Gilden's gritty, up-close-and-personal photographic style

A pillar of Magnum Photos, Bruce Gilden (born 1946) is celebrated for his raw, powerful portraits of life on city streets in his unmistakable "in-your-face" style. "I'm known for taking pictures very close," he says, "and the older I get, the closer I get." However, as its title suggests, this book offers a reconsideration of Gilden's broader oeuvre. Together with approximately 90 black-and-white and color photographs in Gilden's signature style, primarily from his ongoing Faces series, A Closer Look also features two new and previously unpublished studies on paintings by Raphael held in Brescia's museum collections. By applying his close-up perspective to these idealized canvases, Gilden reinterprets the concept of "grace" expressed by the great Renaissance master.