Born December 29, 1946, France. Institut d’Etudes Politiques, 1966-1968, and Universite de Vincennes, 1968-1971. Joined Magnum Photos as an associate in 1972, became a member in 1974. Vice President 1984-85; President 1986-87, 1989-90. Represented by Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.Gilles Peress is the recipient of many awards including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, La Fondation de France, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He also received the W. Eugene Smith Award for Humanistic Photography.
Peress began working as a photographer in 1970, embarking on an intimate portrayal of life in a French coal mining village as it emerged from the ashes of a debilitating labor dispute. He then joined Magnum Photos, the prestigious photography agency founded by Robert Capa.
Peress soon traveled to Northern Ireland to begin an ongoing 20-year project about the Irish civil rights struggle. “Power in the Blood”, a book that synthesizes his years of work in Northern Ireland, is the first part of his ongoing project called “Hate Thy Brother”, a cycle of documentary stories that describe intolerance and the re-emergence of nationalism in the postwar years. “Farewell to Bosnia” was the first part of this cycle, and “The Silence”, a book about the genocide in Rwanda, was the second.
In 1979 Peress traveled to Iran in the midst of a revolution. His highly regarded book, “Telex Iran: In the Name of Revolution”, is about the fragile relationship between American and Iranian cultures during the hostage crisis.
Peress has also completed other major projects, including a photographic study of the lives of Turkish immigrant workers in Germany, and a recent examination of the contemporary legacy of the Latin American liberator Simon Bolivar.
Interview with Gilles Peress
Awards, Grants, and Fellowships
1996 International Center of Photography Infinity Award
1995 Erich Solomon Prize
Camera Works Grant
1994 International Center of Photography Infinity Award
1993 La Fondation de France Fellowship
1992 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
1992-93 Guggenheim Fellowship
1990 Art Matters Grant
1989 Ernst Haas Award
Art Director’s Club Award
1986 Gahan Fellowship, Harvard University
1984 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
W. Eugene Smith Award for Humanistic Photography
1983 Fondation Nationale pour la Photographie Grant
Imogen Cunningham Award
1981 Prix de la Critique Couleur
Prix du Premier Livre/Ville de Paris/Fondation Kodak Pathe
Overseas Press Club Award
Art Director’s Club Award
American Institute of Graphic Arts Award
1979 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
Selected One-Person and Group Exhibitions
1996 Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York
1995 Museum of Modern Art, New York
Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
Farewell to Bosnia: Cranbrook Art Museum, Michigan
1994 Farewell to Bosnia: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago
P.S. 1, New York; Rhode Island College Art Center
New Langton Arts, San Francisco
Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Nimes, France
the Dutch Institute of Photography, Rotterdam
La Primavera Barcelona (Fundacio La Caixa)
1993 Lillehammer Art Museum, Norway
1992 David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence, R.I.
1990 Art Institute of Chicago
Alternative Museum, New York
International Center for Photography, New York
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Canada
1989 Alternative Museum, New York
International Center for Photography, New York
International Museum of Photography/George Eastman House, Rochester, N.Y.
University of South Florida, Tampa
Canon Image Center, Amsterdam
Fotograficentrum, Stockholm, Sweden
Side Gallery, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego
Arbetets Museum, Norrkoping, Sweden
1988 Hipolyte Gallery, Helsinki, Finland
Ranta Gallery, Oulu, Finland
Burden Gallery, Aperture Foundation, New York
1987 Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago
1986 Musee de la Villette, Paris
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University
The Catskill Center for Photography, Woodstock, N.Y.
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
1985 Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Musee d’Art, Fribourg, France
Recontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France
Ledel Gallery, New York
1984 Institute for Art and Urban Resources, P.S. 1, New York
Film in the Cities, St. Paul, Minn.
Focus Gallery, San Francisco
City Gallery, New York
Musee d’Art Moderne, Paris
Institute for Contemporary Art, Boston
Galerie Magnum, Paris
1983 Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, Ore.
1982 Side Gallery, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England
Centre Kodak, Paris
1981 Palais du Luxembourg, Paris
International Center for Photography, New York
1980 Institute for Art and Urban Resources, P.S. 1, New York
Arts Council of Great Britain, London
Adakyu, Grand Gallery, Tokyo
1977 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Selected collections
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Aris Council of Great Britain, London
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris
First Bank of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University
Fondation Leitz, Rueil-Malmaison, France
Fondation Nationale pour la Photographie, Paris
International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester, N.Y.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis
Musee d’Art Moderne, Paris
Museum of the Moving Image, New York
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Side Gallery, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England
University of South Florida Art Museum, Tampa
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Books
Telex. Iran (Telex.- Persans), Aperture/Contrejour, 1984, Text by Gholam Hassan Saedi
Farewell to Bosnia, Scalo Publishers, 1993, Text by Gilles Peress
The Silence, Scalo Publishers, 1994, Text by Alison Des Forges
Power In the Blood: Photographs of the North of Ireland, Jonathan Cape/Scalo, to be published Spring 1997, with texts by Nan Richardson and Gilles Peress
Video/Films
A Peruvian Equation, from the series “The Magnum Eye”, TV Tokyo, Japan, 1992
