Nicholas David Gordon Knight

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(born 24 November 1958) is a British

fashion photographer Fashion photography is a genre of photography which is devoted to displaying clothing and other fashion items, sometimes haute couture. It typically consists of a fashion photographer taking a picture of a dressed model (person), model in a photo ...

and founder and director of SHOWstudio.com. He is an honorary professor at

University of the Arts London University of the Arts London is a collegiate university in London, England, specialising in arts, design, fashion and the performing arts. It is a federation of six arts colleges: Camberwell College of Arts, Central Saint Martins, Chelsea ...

and was awarded an honorary Ph.D. by the same university. He has produced books of his work including retrospectives ''Nicknight'' (1994) and ''Nick Knight'' (2009). In 2016, Knight's 1992 campaign photograph for fashion brand

Jil Sander Heidemarie Jiline "Jil" Sander (; b. 27 November 1943) is a German minimalist fashion designer and the founder of the Jil Sander fashion house. Early life and education Heidemarie Jiline Sander was born in Wesselburen, Nazi Germany on 27 Nov ...

was sold by

Phillips Phillips may refer to: Businesses Energy * Chevron Phillips Chemical, American petrochemical firm jointly owned by Chevron Corporation and Phillips 66. * ConocoPhillips, American energy company * Phillips 66, American energy company * Phil ...

auction house at the record-breaking price of HKD 2,360,000.

Life and career

Knight was born in

Hammersmith Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. He studied photography at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design and published his first book of photographs 'Skinhead' in 1982 when he was still a student at the school. He was then commissioned by '' i-D'' editor Terry Jones to create a series of portraits for magazine's fifth-anniversary issue. His work caught the attention of art director Marc Ascoli, who commissioned Knight to shoot the 1986 catalog of Japanese designer

Yohji Yamamoto is a Japanese fashion designer based in Tokyo and Paris. Considered a master tailor alongside those such as Madeleine Vionnet, he is known for his avant-garde tailoring featuring Japanese design aesthetics. Yamamoto has won notable awards fo ...

in collaboration with Peter Saville. In 1992 Knight took a year long break from fashion photography to work on an exhibition at

Natural History Museum, London The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum ...

with the British architect

David Chipperfield Sir David Alan Chipperfield, (born 18 December 1953) is an English architect. He established David Chipperfield Architects in 1985. His major works include the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire (1989–1998); the Muse ...

. The exhibition was called ''Plant Power'' and was on the theme of the relationship between humans and plants. The exhibition lasted for fifteen years. In November 2000, Knight launched SHOWstudio.com. He directed his first music video in 2001, for the song " Pagan Poetry" by

Björk Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( , ; born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. Noted for her distinct three-octave vocal range and eccentric persona, she has de ...

. In 2003, he created a film for

Massive Attack Massive Attack are an English trip hop collective formed in 1988 in Bristol by Robert "3D" Del Naja, Adrian "Tricky" Thaws, Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall. The debut Massive Attack album '' Blue Lines'' was rele ...

's album ''

100th Window ''100th Window'' is the fourth studio album by English electronic music group Massive Attack, released on 10 February 2003 by Virgin Records. The album was mainly produced by lead member Robert Del Naja, as the group's producer Andrew Vowles dep ...

.'' In 2011 and 2013, he directed the videos for

Lady Gaga Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta ( ; born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenag ...

's single " Born This Way" and

Kanye West Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer. Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the ea ...

's " Bound 2" and " Black Skinhead." In 2016, he photographed American rapper/singer Travis Scott for his sophomore album ''

Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight ''Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight'' is the second studio album by American rapper Travis Scott. It was released on September 2, 2016, through Grand Hustle Records and distributed by Epic Records. It exclusively premiered through Travis Scott and ...

.'' In 2016, he was commissioned to shoot official portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles for the Queen's 90th birthday. Also in 2016, Knight's hand-coated pigment photographic work, ''Tatjana Patitz for Jil Sander, 1992'' sold for an artist-record $304,204 at Phillips Hong Kong. The work, originally photographed in 1992 and reprinted in 2016, featured supermodel

Tatjana Patitz Tatjana Patitz (born 25 March 1966) is a German model and actress who achieved international prominence in the 1980s and 1990s representing fashion designers on runways and in magazines such as ''Elle'', '' Harper's Bazaar'', and '' Vogue''. Pati ...

in a

advertising campaign photographed by Knight. The celebrated photograph from Knight's commercial career in the fashion industry represents the collectability of his painterly works to buyers in the world of fine art. In 2019, he collaborated with Kanye West again, directing his short film '' Jesus Is King.'' Filmed in the summer of 2019, the film brings West's Sunday Service to life in the Roden Crater, artist

James Turrell James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist known for his work within the Light and Space movement. Much of Turrell's career has been devoted to a still-unfinished work, '' Roden Crater'', a natural cinder cone crater located outsi ...

's installation in the Painted Desert. The film accompanied the release of '' Jesus Is King'', West's ninth studio album, and was released in

IMAX IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating. Graem ...

theaters on October 25, 2019. In 2021, he reunited with Gaga for a collaboration with Champagne brand Dom Perignon on the campaign "The Queendom", in order to realize a series of photos as well as an advertisement, which was released on April 6. Following the announcement of Lady Gaga’s 2022 Summer Stadium World Tour, The Chromatica Ball, Knight was charged to shoot a series of interludes several weeks before it started, matching the twisted dark fantasy visuals Gaga had in mind for her shows.

Selected exhibitions

A few of Nick Knight's exhibitions are listed below: 2016 *''Nick Knight'', Christophe Guye Galerie, Zürich, Switzerland * ''Nick Knight: Image'', Daelim Museum, Seoul, South Korea * ''History of Photography: The Body'',

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and ...

, London * ''#techstyle'',

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, United States of America * ''Vogue 100'',

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...

2015 *''Vogue Like a Painting'', Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain *''Killer Heels'', Victoria and Albert Museum, London *''Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty'', Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2014 * ''Killer Heels'',

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown ...

, Brooklyn New York, United States 2012 * ''Icons of Tomorrow – Contemporary Fashion Photography'', Christophe Guye Galerie, Zurich, Switzerland 2011 * ''Vanity'', Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria 2009 * ''Fashion Revolution'',

Somerset House Somerset House is a large Neoclassical complex situated on the south side of the Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadrangle was built on the site of a Tudor palace ( ...

, London 2006 * ''Archeology of Elegance'', Deichtorhallen Museum, Hamburg, Germany * ''Talking to Myself,

'', La Masion Européenne de la Photographie, Paris 2001 * ''Century City'',

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...

, London 2000 * ''CUT'', (Exhibition By The Hairdresser Barnabee) Musee De La Mode, Paris * ''La Beaute'', Exhibition For EN2000, Avignon, France * ''Facing The Future'', Touring Exhibition to Celebrate 20 Years of The Face Magazine * ''Das Fernglas'',

German Hygiene Museum The German Hygiene Museum (german: Deutsches Hygiene-Museum) is a medical museum in Dresden, Germany. It conceives itself today as a "forum for science, culture and society". It is a popular venue for events and exhibitions, and is among the most ...

, Dresden, Germany * ''Nadja'', Exhibition Celebrating Nadja Auermann, Germany * ''Imperfect Beauty'', Victoria and Albert Museum, London * ''Nurture and Desire'', Hayward Gallery, London 1998 * ''Look at me – Fashion Photography 1965 to Present'', British Council Traveling Exhibition * ''Powerhause:uk'', Department of Trade and Industry * ''The Oriental Curiosity – 21st Century Chinoiserie'', Traveling exhibition, (London, Paris, Hong Kong) * ''Shoreditch Biennale'', London * ''The first 25'' (retrospective exhibition of images from Visionaire magazine), Colette, Paris * ''Addressing the Century: 100 Years of Art and Fashion'', Hayward Gallery, London * ''No Sex Please we’re British'', Dazed & Confused, and Shiseido Co Ltd, Japan * ''Yves Saint Laurent – 40 Years of Creation'', New York, and Tokyo * ''Silver & Syrup'', Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1997 * ''Contemporary Fashion Photography'', Victoria and Albert Museum, London * ''JAM'', Barbican Gallery, London * ''Little Boxes'', (to accompany the launch of Michael Mack's book, „Surface - Contemporary. Photographic Practice“); Traveling exhibition curated by Michael Mack 1996 * ''Art/Fashion'' (with Alexander McQueen), Biennale di Firenze, Italy 1994 * ''A Positive View'', Saatchi Gallery, London 1993 * ''Vanities Exhibition'', Paris * ''Plant Power'', (permanent exhibit), Natural History Museum, London 1992 * Festival De La Photo De Mode Exhibition, Monaco 1991 * Festival De La Photo De Mode Exhibition, Barcelona, Spain 1989 * Out of Fashion,

The Photographers' Gallery The Photographers' Gallery was founded in London by Sue Davies opening on 14 January 1971, as the first public gallery in the United Kingdom devoted solely to photography. It is also home to the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, established i ...

, London * ''Ils Annoncent La Colour'',

Rencontres d'Arles The Rencontres d’Arles (formerly called ''Rencontres internationales de la photographie d’Arles'') is an annual summer photography festival founded in 1970 by the Arles photographer Lucien Clergue, the writer Michel Tournier and the historia ...

, Holly 1986 * ''20 For Today'', National Portrait Gallery, London * ''14-21 Youth Culture Exhibition'', Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1982 * ''Group Exhibition 1982'', The Photographers' Gallery, London

Publications

*''Skinhead.'' London; New York: Omnibus, 1982. . *''Nicknight.'' Munich: Schirmer/Mosel, 1994. . Produced and directed by Marc Ascoli, Nick Knight, and Peter Saville. Written by Satoko Nakahara. *''Flora.'' Text by

Sandra Knapp Sandra Diane Knapp (born 1956) is an American-born botanist. She is a merit researcher of the Plants Division of the Natural History Museum, London and from 2018 was the president of the Linnean Society of London. While working at the Natural ...

, art direction by Peter Saville, design by Paul Barnes. Initiated in 1993 for his installation of ''Plant Power'' at the

. **Munich: Schirmer/Mosel, 1997. . Hardback. **' Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2003. . Paperback. *''Nick Knight.'' With an introduction by

Charlotte Cotton Charlotte Cotton is a curator of and writer about photography. She has held positions including Head of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Head of Programming at The Photographers' Gallery, London, ...

. **New York: Collins Design, 2009. . ** Harper Design, 2015. . *''Isabella Blow: Fashion Galore!''. New York: Rizzoli, 2013. .

Awards

* 2015 - Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator at

British Fashion Awards The Fashion Awards, known as the British Fashion Awards until 2016, is an annual ceremony established in the United Kingdom in 1989 to showcase both British and international individuals and businesses who have made the most outstanding contribu ...

References

External links