Fergus James MacGregor Greer (born 8 May 1961) is a British-Irish internationally renowned photographer and psychotherapist, known for his strong visual and emotional resonance in his large body of work. He served as an officer in the Irish Guards before leaving to pursue a successful career in photography and, later, in psychotherapy. His work has been featured in numerous publications and exhibitions and held in many public and private collections, including 65 works at the National Portrait Gallery, London.[1]
Greer was born on 8 May 1961, in Aldershot, Hampshire. His family moved to Ireland in 1970 but returned to the UK in 1976. After leaving school, he went on to study at St Martin's School of Art, London. He then attended Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, passing out in 1983.[2]
Career
The Irish Guards
After Sandhurst, Greer was commissioned as an officer into the Irish Guards. He served for four years.[2]
Photography
After leaving the army in 1987, Greer began his career in photography as a studio assistant to a number of photographers, including Richard Avedon,[3] soon becoming Terence Donovan's full-time studio manager and assistant.[4] In 1988 he met the performance artist and designer Leigh Bowery,[3] with whom he established a fruitful working collaboration that ended when Bowery died in 1994.[5][6][7] One of Greer's images of Bowery was listed in The Guardian in 2023 as one of the 40 most outrageous photographs to have changed fashion.[8] During this time Greer was also developing his freelance photographic career with commercial[9] and private commissions and with a variety of magazines. He regularly shot covers for The Sunday Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Fortune, The New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker.[10]
Greer relocated to Los Angeles in 1997 to expand his international reputation and career as a portrait photographer. His list of sitters encompasses royalty, artists, actors, musicians, writers, politicians, businesspeople, academics, and athletes.[11] His work has been recognised with two solo exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery, London in 2001[12] and 2006.[13][2][14][15] The gallery holds 87 of Greer's portraits, including:
In 1999, Greer was appointed as the official war artist for the Kosovo campaign and was embedded with his old regiment, the Irish Guards. He published his work in 2001 in the book Kosovo,[2] with a foreword by General Mike Jackson, who had led the campaign. One of the photographs from the book is now in the collection at the National Portrait Gallery, London.[44]
In December 2006, when Greer came back to live in the UK, he was commissioned by Clarence House to return to Sandhurst to photograph Prince William and Prince Harry. The informal double portrait was taken in the Commandant's House and was supposed to be used at the Concert for Diana in 2007; however, it was never published. The photograph was seen publicly for the first time in 2011 at an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London.[45]Vanity Fair suggested that this portrait was the start of "a new dress-code option: royal casual."[46]
The interest in the "most remarkable portfolio of work"[3] with Leigh Bowery has been enduring. In 2002, Greer published a collection of photos in the book Leigh Bowery Looks.[47][48][49][50] Greer's photos of Bowery have featured in numerous exhibitions over the years. In 2019 the Michael Hoppen Gallery in London hosted the exhibition "Fergus Greer, Leigh Bowery, Looks". One review of the exhibition says, "Half a century later, London feels more grey and colorless than ever. We'll never see Bowery again in the flesh: his true medium. But Greer's vital document lives on: a blueprint for a new generation of club kids and freaks tracing their evolution."[51][52][53] The online art magazine Dazed Digital said, "Greer photographed Bowery in what have become some of the most richly classic and culturally important portraits of the artist to date. The permanent relevance of Greer's images is found in the way they have culturally preserved the icon."[54]
Greer's photographs are extensively used in the major retrospective exhibition "Leigh Bowery!" at the Tate Modern, which opened in February 2025.[55][56] The Independent comments that the photographs are "brilliant".[57] The National Portrait Gallery owns 17 of these photographs, including:
As a continuation of his interest in the human condition and his search for the "truth" while making photographic portraits,[3] Greer trained as an adult psychotherapist at The Westminster Pastoral Foundation between 2010 and 2015. Since 2012 he has worked as a psychotherapist for the NHS, firstly in Hackney and then at Guys Hospital, London.
In 2015, Greer co-founded The Courtyard Garden Clinic and The Ebury Practice in London, from where he practices privately.[64][65]
Exhibitions
Over the years Greer has contributed photographs to many exhibitions around the world, including:-
2009 Gay Icons, National Portrait Gallery, London[81][82][83]
2010 Leigh Bowery and Other Butterflies, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin – Koster Fine Art Gallery, Amsterdam – Loftgalerie, Berlin – Heiner Bastian Gallery, Berlin[66]
2011 The Actress Now, National Portrait Gallery, London[84]
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