Art
Simon Procter studied fine art for many years, initially concentrating on both painting and sculpture, and graduated with a B.A. Honours Degree in Fine Art from Trent University, UK. He moved to Paris in the late 1990s and, while doing various odd jobs in the city, met one of the Visionaire employees and began to get involved with photography.
Around 2005 he worked as a photographer and shot the international campaign for Nike. He also produced for Reebok, Speedo, Nokia, Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger, Hästens, Marriott, Montblanc, Falke, L'Oréal and among others. His photographs has appeared worldwide in magazines such as V Magazine , Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and in the magazine editions of the New York Times , The Independent , T Magazine and The Daily Telegraph .
In 2007 he began working with the English fashion designer Alexander McQueen. In 2008, Vivienne Westwood created a photo series with Simon Procter called "The Magic of Fashion" with the Harry Potter film actress Emma Watson. The story is published in the 342-page Harper's Bazaar book "Fabulous Fashion".
In 2009, Simon Procter met John Galliano and created with him for the Dior Haute Couture collections with Harper's Bazaar, opulent scenes with models and horses, as we know them from battle paintings from the late Baroque and Renaissance periods. The result was the "Galliano Royal" series of pictures on large prints up to 10 meters wide. The works in this series now hang in many galleries and museums around the world [3] [4] including the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. [5]
This synthesis of fashion photography and classical painting characterizes Procter's work and also continued in his portraits. He has portrayed artists such as Kanye West, Morgan Freeman, Pharrell Williams, Emma Watson, Florence Welch, Natalie Imbruglia, Laetitia Casta, Eva Green, Saoirse Ronan and Ellie Goulding, Mila Kunis, Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, Marine Vacth. Even fashion designers have been portrayed by him, such as Giorgio Armani, Stella Tennant, Olivier Theyskens, Hussein Chalayan and Ajuma Nasenyana.
As a horse expert, Simon Procter is dedicated to producing horse shots in studio situations and has received great recognition for his photos and portraits in Great Britain. On the occasion of Her Majesty the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, the seven-day Royal Ascot horse race became one of the most important events of the year. Simon Procter created an elaborate photo campaign with fashion designers such as Stephen Jones, Vivienne Westwood and Dior. [6]
In the same year he began photographing the collections for Dolce & Gabbana and Steven Spielberg invited him into his dream landscape [7] to photograph stars, Breaking Dawn star Dakota Fanning, Kiernan Shipka from Mad Men, Malin Åkerman and Evan Rachel Wood for the Harper's Bazaar feature "The Spielberg Connection", who appear in recreations of some of Spielberg's most famous scenes and characters.
For the film "Oz the Great and Powerful" with James Franco in 2013, Simon Procter photographed Atlanta de Cadenet Taylor for Harper's Bazaar in Louis Vuitton, Bottega Veneta and Svarovski for Harper's Bazaar. [8]
In the same year, Procter photographed the Iconoclouds project. The artist Berndnaut Smilde had developed an interior cloud and Procter photographed it with the five most internationally famous fashion designers: Karl Lagerfeld, Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce, Alber Elbaz and Donatella Versace. The series appears in the American Harper's Bazaar. [9]
Procter then used his unique art aesthetic to develop a photographic technique that captures and documents the large scale of a fashion show in the architectural space in which it takes place. His first fashion photography project was photographing a Dior show from 30 meters above the catwalk. The resulting images were published in two major articles in V Magazine and exhibited at Colette, with sponsorship from Armani and Prada. The Parisian luxury boutique Colette was internationally known for its art projects and not least for the documentary film “Colette Mon Amour” from 2020.
Simon Procter is dedicated to immortalizing the majestic shows of fashion houses such as Chanel, Dior, Lagerfeld, Prada, Givenchy, Valentino and the designers have their haute couture shows documented by Procter worldwide on behalf of Stella McCartney, Diane von Fürstenberg, Michael Kors and The Veil. Part of this work will be published in 2014 in his illustrated book “Modeland” by Rosenbaum Contemporary, Miami. [10]
The Republican Guard of France - the police association of the National Guard has a gigantic portrait of him made with over 100 people, 20 horses and motorcycles.
Since his work was exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2008 and shown at the Grand Palais in Paris, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, Art Basel Miami and the Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA), Moscow, Russia, he is considered one of the most outstanding photographers of his generation in today's contemporary art scene. His works can be seen in museums and are now part of the largest art collections in the world. [11]
For more than ten years, Simon immortalized the opulent fashion shows that Karl Lagerfeld created for the most prestigious fashion houses in the world. The two had a special relationship. The otherwise shy Lagerfeld liked to have Procter portray him. Lagerfeld staged gigantic photo scenarios with Procter with himself and his models, especially for Chanel's haute couture. After Karl Lagerfeld's death, Simon Procter published the world's most legendary fashion shows under the title "Lagerfeld - the Chanel Shows" and provides a look behind the scenes - into areas that are normally inaccessible to most people. The art exhibition with large-format pictures is above all a homage to the icon Karl Lagerfeld. [12] [13]
In 2024, global advertising campaigns by Hästens and Stephen Jones were released, photographed and filmed by Simon Procter.
