Knut Bry – Reflections

The exhibition gives audiences an opportunity to explore the breadth of Bry’s photographic practice, from fashion, advertising and travel photography to art, nature and documentary photography. Through an extensive body of work, Preus Museum aims to show how the photographer has moved between different genres and forms of expression, and how these various aspects of his work have influenced one another.

Knut Bry has had an international career that few Norwegian photographers can match. After beginning his working life as a chef and later working in clothing and design, he travelled to Paris in the 1970s. There, he increasingly worked as a photographer and eventually received commissions from international magazines, fashion houses and brands. However, the exhibition at Preus Museum is not solely about his fashion photography. Throughout his career, Bry has worked in parallel on personal and artistic projects.

A key theme of the exhibition is precisely the meeting point between the commercial and the artistic. Bry has not maintained a sharp distinction between the photographer as a commissioned professional and the photographer as an artist. Images created for magazines, advertising and other clients have taken on new lives in books and art exhibitions. Seen together, the material demonstrates how the boundaries between these fields have remained fluid throughout much of his career.

In recent years, Bry has also turned his camera towards climate, nature and social issues. Among other projects, he has documented the lives of people fleeing their homes and conditions in refugee camps on Lesvos. These works add a distinct documentary and socially engaged dimension to a career often associated with fashion and commercial photography.

The exhibition is based on an extensive archive. Preus Museum recently acquired Bry’s archive, which contains around one million images. This enables the museum to present a substantial part of Bry’s work as a whole. The anniversary exhibition thus also tells a story about the development of photography over more than six decades—from analogue slide film to digital images—and about how Bry’s photographic practice has changed in response to shifts in the media landscape, society at large and his own personal engagement.

When Preus Museum opens the exhibition on 21 November, one of Norway’s most internationally oriented photographers will take centre stage. Visitors will encounter both the fashion and advertising photographer Knut Bry, and the more personal, artistic and documentary dimensions of his extensive body of work.