Marc Lagrange

Belgian photographer Marc Lagrange has quickly gained a reputation as one of the most original and talented nude photographers around. Taking a distinctive approach to setting voluptuous scenes, the Antwerp-based photographer meticulously composes timeless settings — with each location and prop carefully chosen to enhance the romantic and revealing mood. Building trust and chemistry with his models, Lagrange is daring but never crosses into mere titillation. The tension is palpable and a sense of mystery pervades each elaborate vignette. Combining the glamour of classic Hollywood with the sensibility of an Old Master painting, all his alluring heroines seem at ease and approachable — yet just tantalizingly out of reach.

Photographer Marc Lagrange had a gift for illuminating intoxicating beauty and communicating timeless elegance. Filled with longing and sensuality, his photographs are a celebration of fantasy and desire. In the early 1990s, Lagrange began to work quite intensively with Polaroid film, and his nude portraiture found a more dramatic and touching look. As a medium, Polaroid film corresponded perfectly to his aesthetic and artistic vision and it rapidly became a valid means of expression for him. The Belgian artist particularly fell for the unique quality and cool-brown tone coloration of the rare Polaroid 100 Chocolate, one of the last types of film ever to be produced before the Polaroid factory closed down permanently in 2009. Chocolate contains an enticing series of carefully selected and mostly unpublished works shot by Marc Lagrange on Polaroid 100 Chocolate film. More than just preliminary studies of his sophisticated image compositions, the photographs impress with their warm colors, rough textures, and painterly aesthetic. His sensual Polaroids are a powerful example of his craft, as well as his attention to detail.

It takes enviable skill and dedication to achieve mastery in the arts. Yet even more remarkable is the artist who widens his scope to venture beyond his already widely acclaimed signature style. Few would dare to even consider such a risk...However, in Senza Parole, Marc Lagrange is audacious enough to make that thrilling leap as he boldly showcases a broad array of distinctive approaches-everything from starkly straight nude studies-in the honourable tradition of Helmut Newton-to Lagrange's more typically intricate and exotic compositions. The photographer's devoted followers will still find the dream-like eroticism he is known for, yet, in this work, each photograph is one of a kind, with Lagrange's hallmark of technical perfection. As one would expect from Lagrange, each tableau is carefully configured with not a single detail left to chance.