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A singular artist with a unique perception of the arts, fashion, advertising and life, Guy Bourdin (1928-1991) changed the face of fashion advertising in the 1970s.

Now, as a major exhibition is in frame for the Year of France in China, Bourdin's works are being displayed at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing through May 8. The exhibition will then move to the Shanghai Art Museum for display between June 4 and 19.

French Vogue, January 1970, by Guy Bourdin.
Photo courtesy of the Estate of Guy Bourdin, 2005

"Bourdin's eyes are those of a painter rather than a fashion photographer. I hope Chinese fashion insiders and common viewers would appreciate his works," said Shelly Verthime, exhibition curator.

Besides a large number of fashion works Bourdin created for the top fashion magazines such as Vogue and Bazaar, the exhibition also includes Bourdin's non-fashion works, personal Polaroids, landscape slide shows and informal experiments - so a detailed understanding of his artistic development and thought processes is possible.

One impressive collection for Chinese viewers is the series that French Vogue commissioned him to take in China in 1985.

At a time when China was not that open and fashion was a relatively new word in the country, Bourdin had his shocking European models pose at the Temple of Heaven, Great Wall, Suzhou's gardens and Hanshansi Temple and Wuxi's narrow lanes paved with stones.

The contrast between the sensual and exotic Western women and the quiet traditional Chinese architecture was so striking and timeless that many beauty contests today copy the idea and select such old towns and architecture as shooting venues.

The part of black-and-white photographs of landscapes includes the works that Bourdin shot in between 1950 and 1957. He photographed mainly on the streets of Paris and in Normandy, both places where he had spent much of his childhood.

These early abstract photographs had the same dramatic, graphic qualities that could be seen in his later photographs for fashion magazines.

The Polaroids series are photographs he took while traveling for his fashion assignments or on personal trips. Bourdin used the Polaroid camera to record his vision of the world.

Viewers can also see some original footage that Bourdin shot on 8mm and 16mm film between 1971 and 1975. The assembly of films recorded many of Bourdin's personal journeys or trips for fashion assignments. Together they offer another perspective of his visual and emotional searches in the area of fashion and non-fashion photography.

The exhibition also includes a landscape slide show that features Bourdin's Kodachrome selections taken in the 1970s, both on his trips to the United States and in France.

The photos feature hyper-real colours, meticulous compositions of cropped elements, low skies, high ground, interplays of light and shadows, a pole, a wall. All have dramatic effects on conventional landscapes.

"Guy Bourdin was a groundbreaking image-maker who had a profoundly influential impact on both fashion photography and non-fashion subjects," said Liu Zhankun, veteran fashion photographer at China Youth Daily, after attending the exhibition.

Born in 1928, Bourdin grew up in an age of war and experienced challenges represented by the philosophies of surrealism.

He was fascinated and assimilated Surrealism in its broader senses. From the mid-1950s, Bourdin experimented and refined his distinct vision, produced fashion images, photographed and filmed his observations of the world.

His first fashion commission was for the French Vogue in February 1955 and in the next three decades, he created photographs that reinvigorated the medium of fashion photography.

His works for Charles Jourdan's shoes in 1967 breathed new life into the fetish-footwear market.

It was when he was in his 40s that he acquired maturity in his practice. His poignant observations coincided with a dynamic period of social change in the Western countries, from sexual liberation, the rise of media power to cinema and television's extensive portrayal of violence.

In his works, Bourdin explored with great passion the meaning of desire, as well as the search for ideal beauty, vulnerability and sexuality.

Bourdin passed away in 1991.

His son, Samuel Bourdin and the curator Shelly Verthime have made it possible for the Chinese people to have such an opportunity to closely see the master's creations.

Both Samuel Bourdin and Verthime consider China as currently the most important country in the world.

The Brazil-based Samuel Bourdin has planned to move with his family to Shanghai and send his daughter to learn Mandarin.

"I wish Chinese people would appreciate my father's photos. In my eyes he is a painter rather than a fashion photographer," the 38-year-old Samuel Bourdin said.

Verthime said the exhibition can also be considered a celebration of Bourdin's shooting in China some 20 years ago.

The late artist could not imagine how great the changes have been in the old country. "My first visit to China was 15 years ago and I have witnessed great changes in fashion, design, business, architecture, lifestyles and many more," said the London-based Israeli cultural historian as well as the creative consultant of the fashion brand, Alber Elbaz's Lanvin.

"Chinese people are so quick to learn new information, accept new ideas and I think they need to see more such things as Bourdin's photography," said the curator.

Editor: Wing