Biography
John Stewart, born in London, brought up in France, took up photography after a chance meeting with Henri Cartier-Bresson. Since his release from six years in the British Army, three-and-a half of these years in Japanese prison camps on the River Kwai, he had been looking for a career. It took off in New York, in 1952, under the guidance of Alexei Brodovitch, the celebrated art director of HARPER’S BAZAAR. For that magazine he got assignments in fashion, beauty, reportage, still-life. For FORTUNE, he did portraits of corporate directors. On Brorodovitch‘s retirement, he moved to VOGUE and also took up advertsing. He travelled extensively for his assignments, and in 1958 he spent two month in Sri Lanka as technical adviser to the movie The Bridge on theRiver Kwai.
Stewart and his family left New York in 1964 and returned to Europe. In Paris, he worked essentially for ELLE and French VOGUE, and also in advertising. But in the mid-Seventies abandoning gradually both advertising and editorial photography, he turned to a more personal expression with large black-and white still-lifes. His first exhibit took place in New York (1975), and the second in Paris in the prestigious Bibilothèque Nationale. Since then, every year he has shows, both in museums and galleries.
Stewart looks for themes. The underlying motivation of his work is the trace left by the passage of time whether the ephemeral aspects of folded cloth in GRAVITAS, a large book on folds and draperies which took two years to compile, or the short life of flowers , recorded over six months in South-East Asia. His work has been strongly influenced by his interest and his travels in India, China, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. He was co-founder in 1998 of an NGO devoted to the care of people suffering from eye-diseases in Cambodia. The NGO now functions in Sri Lanka, Nepal and Laos as well.
Apart from his photographic books, Stewart is the author of other works, such as an account of his war years in Japanese prison camps, of a school for elephants in Thailand, of villages in Italy. An autobiography in the form of anecdotes will be published next year in America.
His first exhibit in Shanghai, he hopes, will develop into a new body of photographs dealing again with time and memory, but in Chinese villages.
Main Exhibitions
Artwork
