Morocco, Harry Gruyaert

Paris — The Magnum Gallery is pleased to present MOROCCO, an exhibition of works by Belgian  photographer and filmmaker Harry Gruyaert focusing on his extensive travels to the North African country of Morocco. Gruyaert’s first trip to the country marked his colour photography ‘epiphany’. Gruyaert joined Magnum Photos in 1982. The exhibition is presented from 30 January to 2 April 2021 at the gallery and online.

While Gruyaert became fascinated by the power of colour when he first moved to Paris in the 1960s, and subsequently on his first trip to New York in 1968 where he saw the works of Pop artists Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg, his revelation that colour photography was his preferred medium came from his very first trip to Morocco in 1969. Reminiscent of artists Eugène Delacroix and Henri Matisse, this revelation had a long-lasting impact on Gruyaert’s oeuvre which he decided to entirely dedicate to colour photography.

The exhibition presented at the Magnum Gallery in Paris celebrates this realization and spotlights one of his most significant and poetic bodies of works, spanning 40 years of the artist’s work. During his many trips to Morocco, Gruyaert developed a highly personal photographic language, revealing the essence of the colours, landscapes and people he saw and met.