Background

Albert Watson was born on August 6, 1942, in Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. The son of a physical education teacher. He grew up in Penicuik, Midlothian.

Education

Albert Watson received a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art (now Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design) in Dundee, Scotland, in 1966 and a Master of Arts in Film from the Royal College of Art in London, England, in 1970.

Career

In 1970, Albert Watson moved to the United States with his wife, Elizabeth, who got a job as an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles, where Watson began shooting photos, mostly as a hobby. Later that year, he was introduced to an art director at Max Factor, who offered him his first test session, from which the company purchased two images. Watson’s distinctive style garnered the attention of American and European fashion magazines such as Mademoiselle, GQ, and Harper’s Bazaar, and he began commuting between Los Angeles and New York.

Albert Watson photographed his first celebrity in 1973, a portrait of Alfred Hitchcock holding a dead goose with a ribbon around its neck, for that year's Harper's Bazaar's Christmas issue. The image has become one of Watson's most famous portraits on a list that now includes hundreds of well-known photographs of movie stars, rock stars, rappers, supermodels, even President Clinton and Queen Elizabeth II. In 1975, Watson won a Grammy Award for the photography on the cover of the Mason Proffit album "Come and Gone," and in 1976, he landed his first job for Vogue. With his move to New York that same year, his career took off.

In addition to photography for magazines, Albert Watson has created the images for hundreds of successful advertising campaigns for major corporations, such as the Gap, Levi’s, Revlon, and Chanel, and he has directed more than 100 TV commercials and photographed dozens of posters for major Hollywood movies, such as Kill Bill, Memoirs of a Geisha, and The Da Vinci Code. All the while, Watson has spent much of his time working on personal projects, taking photographs from his travels and interests, from Marrakech to Las Vegas to the Orkney Islands. Much of this work, along with his well-known portraits and fashion photographs, has been shown in museum and gallery shows around the world, and Watson's limited-edition prints have become highly sought after by collectors.

Albert Watson was the first Western photographer to be exhibited at the Lianzhou Museum of Photography in Lianzhou, China, with an exhibition in December 2017. Watson’s photographs have also been shown in many groups shows at museums, including the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, the International Center of Photography in New York, and the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, Germany. His photographs are included in the permanent collections at the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Achievements

• Albert Watson has shot over 100 covers of Vogue and 40 covers of Rolling Stone magazine since the mid-1970s and has created major advertising campaigns for clients such as Prada, Chanel, and Levis.
  
  Albert Watson has also taken some well-known photographs, from the portrait of Steve Jobs that appeared on the cover of his biography, a photo of Alfred Hitchcock holding a plucked goose, and a portrait of a nude Kate Moss taken on her 19th birthday.
  
  Photo District News named him one of the 20 most influential photographers of all time, along with Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, among others. He has won numerous honors, including a Lucie Award, a Grammy Award, the Hasselblad Masters Award, and three ANDY Awards.
  
  Albert Watson was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 2010. Queen Elizabeth II awarded Watson an Order of the British.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Albert Watson: Maroc

    (With the personal insight of a diarist and the detailed e...)

    1998
  • UFO: Albert Watson

    (One of the world’s most successful photographers, Albert ...)

    2010
  • Cyclops

    (Presents a collection of iconic portraits and photographs...)

    1997
  • Albert Watson: Creating Photographs (Masters of Photography)

    (Let legendary fashion and portrait photographer Albert Wa...)

• photography

  • On the Road to Marrakech

    1997

  • Ryuichi Sakamoto

    1989

  • Alfred Hitchcock

    1973

  • Steve Jobs

  • Ziyi Zhang, Los Angeles

    2005

  • Kate Moss, Marrakech

    1993

  • Christy Turlington, Luxor, Egypt

    1987

  • Lisa Kauffmann, Paris

    1986

  • Breaunna in Cat Mask, Las Vegas Hilton

    2001

  • Mike Tyson, Catskills, New York

    1986

Membership

• American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP)

  1972

Connections

Spouse:

Elizabeth

References

• Albert Watson Albert Watson is one of today's most successful and sought-after fashion and commercial photographers. His instantly recognizable portraits feature many iconic figures of fashion and popular culture, including Kate Moss, Jack Nicholson, Mike Tyson, and Alfred Hitchcock. His photographs have been featured on over 250 covers of VOGUE and in publications such as ROLLING STONE, THE FACE, and ARENA. He has shot major commercial campaigns for clients that range from Levi's to Chanel. This book is an important and accessible survey of his work. It features previously unpublished photographs from early in his career, along with his most famous images from both commercial and artistic projects.
  2007
• Albert Watson official website