Pablo Picasso sagely advised, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist” – a sensibility that applies to Lee Alexander McQueen (1969-2010) and his longtime collaborator, French photographer Ann Ray, otherwise known as Anne Deniau. Between 1997 and 2010, Ray collaborated with the iconoclastic British designer who turned the world of fashion upside down, creating some 32,000 prints, contact sheets, and vintage works, most of which have never been seen by the public before.
.
“For 13 years, I never gave one photograph to anyone. After Lee left, I would talk to him, saying, ‘Okay this is my job. You knew what you were doing. I’m in charge now,’” says Ray, who has come to understand the purpose of this singular collaboration. “My archive is both tangible, prints and negatives, and also non-tangible: it’s my experience and memories. I have to be very careful and make sure his legacy is transmitted with dignity. These photographs belong to history.”
.
Now, more than a decade after the designer’s tragic death, Barrett Barrera Projects, one of the world’s largest private collections of garments and ephemera created by Lee Alexander McQueen, has acquired Ray’s photographic archive of the most revolutionary atelier of our time. The acquisition of Ray’s archive allows Barrett Barrera Projects to tell a richer story about McQueen, celebrating the complex artistry that lies at the heart of his work.
.
.
