Carolina in New York, 1976

Andy Warhol once called him the best photographer in the world, but Jean-Paul Goude isn’t just that. Goude is many things: graphic designer, illustrator, director, and yes, photographer, but he prefers the term “artisan.” Responsible for some of the most visually arresting images of the last few decades, he has created works that have redefined and reshaped our notions of what visual art and advertising should look like. These images, which model the physicality of his muses (Grace Jones and Farida Khelfa especially), have been known to turn his advertising campaigns into benchmarks of style, regardless of the product they are promoting.

Goude is perhaps best-known for his pre-Adobe Photoshop photo manipulation technique that the editors at Esquire dubbed “French Correction.” This entails cutting up photos and splicing them together to exaggerate and draw attention to certain features. “I’m always searching for equilibrium, symmetry, and rhythm in an image,” he explained in an interview with Vice.

Grace Jones in New York, 1981

He has photographed countless iconic figures in the fashion world, including Nicolas Ghesquières, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Karl Lagerfeld, and Ricardo Tisci. His portraits of personalities from the entertainment industry have also seared themselves into our memory; he has shot Mariah Carey, Katy Perry, and Pharrell Williams, among many others. And of course, who could forget the Paper feature on Kim Kardashian that set out to “break the internet?”

For over 40 years, Goude has been expressing himself through drawings, posters, photography, films, videos, and events. No matter what his medium, he has always enthralled our collective imaginations, grabbing our attention with jaw-dropping imagery skirting on the edge of surrealism.

Portrait of an Artisan

Self-portrait of Jean-Paul Goude in Paris, 2011

The artist was born in the suburbs of Paris in 1940 to a French father and American mother. His mother, the first of his many muses, was a former Broadway dancer who ran a dance school in France, which Goude credits as the root of his “lifelong obsession with the dynamism of movement and form.” 

He went on to study fine arts at the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs; but though he admired the modern art of Balthus, he knew upon seeing a George Lois cover on an issue of Esquire that he could do great things in advertising. “I found it more interesting to turn to publicity as a means of expr ession,” he said in an interview with Vogue. “For me there was no difference between Lois and Balthus. The oeuvres were different, but the degree of artfulness was the same in both.”

Jessica Chastain as Joan of Arc, 2015

After finishing his studies, Goude embarked on a career as an illustrator. He met Harold Hayes—then the editor of Esquire magazine—when the latter was in Europe looking for talent. Goude was just 28 when he was asked by Hayes to art direct the magazine’s 75th issue—a special edition. A few months after that, Hayes called to ask Goude if he knew anyone suitable for the job of art director, and he proposed himself. A few days later, he had the job, and so he took everything he owned and moved himself to New York.

Read the full article in the July 2016 issue of Philippine Tatler, available in all leading newsstands and bookstores. Download it on your digital device via Zinio, Magzter, or PressReader.