Alexander McQueen Celebrated As Sensitive Master Through Unrivaled Photographs By Dear Friend Ann Ray

A youthful Lee Alexander McQueen gently and fastidiously adjusts the deal with frame of an exaggerated collar on an intricate brocade jacket all around the model’s deal with. An attentive seamstress observes, witnessing what would turn out to be the shy designer’s emergence in the haute couture world.

The “cupping” gesture captured in this 40-centimeter-30-centimeter silver gelatin print advanced into a trademark of the male identified to the environment as Alexander McQueen and by his total title among close friends and confidants this sort of as Ann Ray.

Ray’s Defend (1997), is among the 63 images on view together with 50 of McQueen’s inimitable models – fashion that, just like Ray’s breathtaking, intimate photographs, features as fine art – from Saturday by means of April 2, 2023, at the Crocker Artwork Museum in Sacramento, California.

“This was his incredibly very first couture exhibit,” Ray recalled. “It was so exciting to see this super talented younger person arrive in. I imagined, ‘What is he undertaking?’ This a single is a incredibly important gesture for me. You can see that garments turn out to be security.”

Ray devoted 13 yrs to meticulously photographing McQueen and the supermodels that introduced his creations to life on runways and in glossy spreads, chronicling his 1st haute couture selection at Givenchy and each and every backstage, studio, and runway working experience that defined a master of his craft. Grossly misunderstood by those who observed him only as a behemoth of substantial trend, Ray’s singular visuals reveal the deeply psychological guy who transformed both of those their life by way of an unparalleled friendship.

Curated and structured by Barrett Barrera Tasks, Lee Alexander McQueen & Ann Ray: Rendez-Vous, the 1st large-manner exhibition at is the oldest artwork museum in the Western United States, is accompanied by an interactive area that encourages visitors to interact with McQueen’s and Ray’s operate via experiential activities, these kinds of as mastering embroidery, exploring styles and materials, and posing for a photograph on the runway.

Susan Barrett, president of Barrett Barrera Assignments, started out accumulating McQueen objects all-around 2011, bidding towards collectors like Girl Gaga at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, and obtaining from the handful of persons who cherish these timeless performs of vogue-art.

“This is a pretty, pretty own clearly show. McQueen has performed a extremely unique function in my everyday living,” Barrett explained to me all through an October 2019 during a go to to the inaugural exhibition at Barrett Barrera Projects’ gallery area in St. Louis. The to start with iteration of this large-reaching demonstrate was awe-inspiring for a longtime admirer of McQueen and his textile masterpieces, mastering about the shut companionship with Ray that enabled her to depict the genuine determine powering the scenes and the headlines.

Ray’s photos portray McQueen as a compassionate and emotional gentleman who developed enduring bonds with the gals in his lifestyle, aiding them navigate their personal difficulties and trauma though amplifying their purpose in endorsing his creations. Ray reveals the delicate creature who was misrepresented in the media as disconsolate. From his individual boyish confront to the tenderness he displays versions, we come upon the true McQueen as seen by Ray’s lens. Kate Moss, Erin O’Connor, Karen Ellison, Naomi Campbell, Carmen Kass, and other people trustworthy, admired, and understood the McQueen of Ray’s oeuvre, a consummate creative genius who thoughtfully collaborated with individuals who assisted to share his eyesight with the globe.

“People would say I am trend photographer and he is a vogue designer, and which is not correct,” Ray told me in 2019.

Ray is a French visual artist, who is self-taught in images apart from different procedures, which she analyzed at Central Saint Martins in London. She very first displayed some of her function with McQueen at the exhibition Les Inachevés: Lee McQueen throughout the 2018 version of The Rencontres d’Arles, an once-a-year summer season pictures festival founded in 1970 by photographer Lucien Clergue, writer Michel Tournier, and historian Jean-Maurice Rouquette.

“Knowing Lee McQueen has been a blessing and a curse. It is essential for me to be joyful,” mentioned Ray. “The goal of this exhibition was also to show the fact of the legend. The legend can expand more substantial and greater, but the truth is the reality.”

Rendez-Vous showcases about 25% of Barrett’s McQueen collection. About 20% of the collection was on see as element of Barrett Barrera Projects’ touring exhibition A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes, which also showcased functions by Selam Fessahaye, Ashish, Chromat, Gypsy Activity, Gucci, Prada, Chanel, and Iris van Herpen.

Rendez-Vous will vacation to other towns after the Crocker.