Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Formal portraits have always occupied a crucial role in the art world, whether the artist be Holbein in the court of King Henry VIII, Goya as the painter of the Spanish Bourbons, or Timothy Greenfield-Sanders as photographer of presidents Clinton and Bush. After studying art history at Columbia University, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders went on to study filmmaking at the American Film Institute. While at the AFI, he volunteered to shoot the portraits of the famous actors and directors that would visit the school, thus launching him on a new career as a celebrity photographer. After completing his Master's work at AFI, Greenfield-Sanders returned to New York City in 1978, where he adopted an 11X14 view camera as his default photographic tool. His use of a large film format, coupled to his respect for the subjects of his photographs, have led to portraits that uniquely express the sitter's inner life in subtle yet expressive details. In addition to his celebrity work, he has become well-known as a portrait photographer of American artists, including Willem de Kooning and Robert Rauschenberg. In a somewhat different vein, in 2004 he exhibited a series of photographs entitled "XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits", which depicted each star twice, in both clothed and unclothed fashion, echoing Goya's dual "Maja" paintings. While Greenfield-Sanders mostly works in large format, he has also shown expertise as a digital photographer when the occasion demands it, such as in his lively coverage of the Olympus Fashion Week personalities and events. And lest anyone think that his studies at the AFI have fallen into disuse, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders will be happy to prove them wrong: in 1998 he directed a Grammy award-winning documentary on Lou Reed, and more recently The Black List, a "living portrait" documentary, where twenty prominent African Americans tell their stories of struggles, triumphs, and joys.
