ENDLESS SUMMERS IN ST. TROPEZ

David Hamilton (*1933) is now named in the same breath with contemporary artists such as Sally Mann and Jock Sturges. He shares with them the shift to biographical photography largely focusing on youth. What he doesn’t share with them is their realism. Hamilton has created his own world-renowned, romanticized style, which finds its strongest expression in his nude photographs: the Hamilton look. He works exclusively with natural light and utilizes a diffuser scrim and historical costumes because he is convinced that photography reached its apex at the beginning of the twentieth century; he is not interested in creating something “new” or “modern.” Photography developed out of painting, and Hamilton looks to remain in this solid tradition. Whether an erotic nude portrait or a landscape, his work finds its role models in the halls of art history: Raphael, Balthus, Degas.

Hamilton’s eventful career, which took the Londoner to Paris during the swinging sixties and then to St. Tropez, has been accompanied by numerous prominent acquaintances, as well as by critics. He has worked as photographer and director, as well as art director for the Parisian department store Printemps, opening the way for a light-footed lifestyle and body-hugging fashion. Today these are considered standard and are well suited to an open society fascinated by beauty.

The creator of the cult film Bilitis himself disarms the criticism that his images paint an unrealistic picture of life; he himself lives exactly such a life in the south of France and enjoys it to the fullest.