Harry Gruyaert – A World in Colour – September 4, 2025 | January 25, 2026

The exhibition “Harry Gruyaert. A World in Colour” shows around 120 images by the Belgian artist and European pioneer of colour photography. Harry Gruyaert created most of his extensive body of work during his trips to countries such as Egypt, India, Morocco, the US, Russia, Spain or France. With his extraordinary sense for composing colour and space, he captures landscapes and urban scenes, emphasising contrasts: the play of light and shadow in an airport terminal, the intense yellow of an American vintage car, the vibrant colours of Moroccan streets or the muted tones of Belgian landscapes. Gruyaert (* 1941, Antwerp, Belgium) discovers these mostly cheerful, occasionally melancholic splashes of colour even where they would go unnoticed by most passers-by and applies them to shape his motifs’ compositions.

‍

For one of his first assignments as a photographer, Gruyaert travelled to Morocco in 1969; a country that deeply fascinated him and where he spent several months on multiple occasions. It was particularly the sunlight, intensifying the landscapes’ bright colours, and the interplay of nature and architecture, which encouraged him to turn towards colour film. From then on, colour – which he had previously been using sparingly in his native Belgium – became the central design element in his work, which was still rather unusual in European artistic photography of the 1970s.

‍

In 1982, Gruyaert joined the renowned photo agency Magnum. Its assignments opened up new opportunities to travel the world. Unlike many of his colleagues, Gruyaert acted less out of journalistic interest and more out of a desire to capture the atmosphere of a place and the mood of a moment. His images go far beyond mere documentation and are characterised by a painterly, almost cinematic view of the world.The exhibition “Harry Gruyaert. A World in Colour” is the most comprehensive presentation of the photographer’s work in Germany to date. It was curated by Anne-Marie Beckmann, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, and Cornelia Siebert and is a cooperation with Magnum Photos.

Harry Gruyaert was born in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1941. He studied photography and film in Brussels. After moving to Paris, he worked as a fashion photographer and met several photographers and directors whom he greatly admired. In 1982, Gruyaert became a member of the renowned photo agency Magnum Photos. He currently lives in Paris.