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Gregory Crewdson is an American photographer best known for staging cinematic scenes of suburbia to dramatic effect. His surreal images are often melancholic, offering ambiguous narrative suggestions and blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality. Working with large production teams to scout and shoot his images, his photographs have become increasingly complex as if it were for a motion picture production, including its painstaking preparation of elaborate sets, lighting, and cast, as seen in his seminal series Beneath the Roses (2003-2008) and Twilight (1998-2001). "My pictures are about a search for a moment-a perfect moment," Crewdson has explained. Born on September 26, 1962 in Brooklyn, NY, the artist went to the State University of New York at Purchase College where he studied with Jan Groover and Laurie Simmons. In 1988, he graduated from Yale University with an MFA in photography, and since 1993 has served on its faculty, currently as the director of its graduate studies in photography. He has cited Steven Spielberg, Diane Arbus, and Edward Hopper as influences to his practice. In 2012, Ben Shapiro's documentary Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival, charting Crewdon's harrowing photographic process from beginning to end. His works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others. The artist lives and works in New York, NY.

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Gregory Crewdson is an American photographer best known for staging cinematic scenes of suburbia to dramatic effect. View Gregory Crewdson's 669 artworks on artnet. Find an in-depth biography, exhibitions, original artworks for sale, the latest news, and sold auction prices. See available photographs, and prints and multiples for sale and learn about the artist.

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Gregory Crewdson | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation

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Learn about Gregory Crewdson and their art in the Guggenheim’s Collection Online.

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A boy stands under a surreal beam of light, looking upward as if something divine or alien is about to happen. The neighborhood around him remains untouched.

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“Untitled (Beam of Light)” — from Twilight (1998–2002)

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“Untitled (Beam of Light)” — from Twilight (1998–2002)

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A lone figure stands in the cold glow of dusk. Surrounded by houses, she still feels totally alone—like the moment is frozen in time.

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“Untitled (Winter Street)” — from Beneath the Roses (2003–2008)

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“Untitled (Winter Street)” — from Beneath the Roses (2003–2008)

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A man and woman sit in silence in a wood-paneled room. The scene is eerily calm, but full of emotional weight. Every detail from the shadows to the clutter, feels deliberate.

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“Untitled (Living Room)” — from Cathedral of the Pines (2013–2014)

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“Untitled (Living Room)” — from Cathedral of the Pines (2013–2014)

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About

What I am interested in is that moment of transcendence, where one is transported into another place, into a perfect, still world.
-Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson's photographs have entered the American visual lexicon, taking their place alongside the paintings of Edward Hopper and the films of Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch as indelible evocations of a silent psychological interzone between the everyday and the uncanny. Often working with a large team, Crewdson typically plans each image with meticulous attention to detail, orchestrating light, color, and production design to conjure dreamlike scenes infused with mystery and suspense. While the small-town settings of many of Crewdson's images are broadly familiar, he is careful to avoid signifiers of identifiable sites and moments, establishing a world outside time.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Crewdson is a graduate of SUNY Purchase and the Yale University School of Art, where he is now director of graduate studies in photography. He lives and works in New York and Massachusetts. In a career spanning more than three decades, he has produced a succession of widely acclaimed bodies of work, from Natural Wonder (1992-97) to Cathedral of the Pines (2013-14). Beneath the Roses (2003-08), a series of pictures that took nearly ten years to complete-and which employed a crew of more than one hundred people-was the subject of the 2012 feature documentary Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, by Ben Shapiro.

Photo: Juliane Hiam © Crewdson Studio

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Learn about the work and career of artist Gregory Crewdson. Artworks, biography, exhibitions, editorial content, news, museum exhibitions, press, and more.

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I think that Crewdson’s work can be described as abject because it explores psychological breakdowns, emotional discomfort, and physical disarray hidden beneath everyday suburban life.

His images depict people in liminal states: emotionally distant, isolated, or frozen in time.

Domestic settings are rendered eerie, living rooms are flooded, bedrooms are overlit, or people appear vacant, exposed, or vulnerable.

There's often no clear narrative, just an overwhelming sense of something being wrong as if something unspeakable just happened or is about to.

Crewdson’s photographs turn the ordinary into something unsettling by revealing the quiet dysfunction beneath the surface of “normal life.”

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Gregory Crewdson's photographs are renowned for their cinematic quality, often resembling stills from elaborate film productions. His meticulous approach involves extensive planning, large crews, and intricate lighting setups to create surreal scenes within familiar suburban settings. This method blurs the line between reality and fiction, inviting viewers into a world that's both recognizable and eerily otherworldly.

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1. “Gregory Crewdson.” Artnet, https://www.artnet.com/artists/gregory-crewdson/. Accessed 1 May 2025.

2. “Gregory Crewdson.” Guggenheim Museum, https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/gregory-crewdson. Accessed 1 May 2025.

3. “Gregory Crewdson.” Gagosian, https://gagosian.com/artists/gregory-crewdson/. Accessed 1 May 2025.