This May Hamiltons celebrates photographer Albert Watson’s monumental exhibition Rome Codex at the Palazzo Esposizioni Rome. Watson was hand-picked by representatives of the City of Rome to capture the essence of the city. In counting down to the opening of this landmark exhibition, opening 29 May 2025, Hamiltons has curated a selection of iconic images that highlight the diversity of Watson’s practice in an Online Viewing Room which will be open for a limited duration and close on June 6th 2025.
Albert Watson: Virtuoso is a carefully selected overview of the illustrious and varied career of the master photographer. Born in Scotland in 1942, by the 1970’s Watson’s distinctive style, influenced through his background in graphic design, caught the eye of many American and European fashion magazines, Albert’s photographs have appeared on more than 100 covers of Vogue worldwide and been featured in countless other publications, from Rolling Stone to Time to Harper’s Bazaar. Albert also has created the photography for hundreds of ad campaigns for major companies, such as Prada, the Gap, Levi’s, Revlon and Chanel. Additionally, Watson has shot dozens of Hollywood movie posters, such as “Kill Bill” and “Memoirs of a Geisha.”
Hamiltons’ viewing room features work from the artist’s fashion and editorial work shooting models such as Christy Turlington and Helena Christensen on location for Vogue to personal projects which include his seminal image of Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit as well as later work taken in Syke in Watson’s homeland of Scotland.
Rome Codex will feature over 200 large format prints printed on UV linen – a practice that was first developed by Watson for his 2023 exhibition SKYE at Hamiltons. In Rome, Watson has used this medium to capture the city of Rome through his own unique lens. According to the Palazzo Esposizioni "this will be the biggest photographic exhibition ever held in Italy dedicated to the iconic New York photographer. Rome Codex is a challenge to conventional representations of the Eternal City, a contemporary tale that transcends visual stereotypes drawing to the most authentic essence of the city."
Watson’s photographs and hand-made prints are been exhibited worldwide and are included in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He has won numerous honours, including an Order of the British Empire (OBE) from Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to the art of photography, and a lifetime achievement award from the Royal Photographic Society. Other awards include a Cartier Lifetime Achievement Award, Lucie Award, three Andys, a Der Steiger Award, and a Hasselblad Masters Award.
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Watson is known for his masterful manipulation of contrasts and delicate compositions – using physical traits of the human body to create sculptural images. A focus on composition and lighting adds a meditative characteristic to his images, endorsing his unwavering commitment towards perfection.
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In 2005 Watson photographed the original Darth Vader helmet from the 1977 Star Wars movie. When bringing the helmet to Watson's studio, the movie studio was so nervous that it had to be accompanied by an armed guard.
Watson’s method of lighting subjects, especially the fetish objects and portraits, renders instantly recognisable cultural figures and imagery anew. Darth Vader, one of the most notorious cinematic villains of the twentieth century, is captured in Watson’s unique style occupying a playful middle ground between object and icon.
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The late Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake had an affinity with the art of photography and the role it could play in giving life to his sculptural clothing pieces. Visual directness was a central tenet of Miyake’s design style and he found that photography could provide this directness, collaborating with other esteemed photographers such as Irving Penn. This sumptuous image by Watson is a testament to the relationship between fashion, design and photography.
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This work is from Albert Watson's SYKE project, which was shown in an exhibition at Hamiltons in 2023.
Fairy Glen through Windshield, Isle of Skye, Scotland, Tile Series, 2013 is the first UV print on linen made by Watson, a technique that he has used for prints in the exhibition in Rome. UV printing is broadly similar to any inkjet process in that inks are laid down on a surface. However the inks used do not contain the usual water and solvents in most inkjet inks so they need to be cured using ultraviolet radiation from UV LEDs or mercury vapor lamps attached to the print head. This binds the ink directly to the surface.
His most personal project to date began in 2013 when he toured the island of Skye, working 12 hours a day for 5 weeks, inspiring him to create a series of other-worldly landscape photographs. Known to him since childhood, the island’s dramatic landscapes produced an inescapable magical quality that compelled him to produce a body of extraordinary photographs that he hoped would do more than simply document the landscape. Watson recalls, ‘I was terrified of coming to Skye and producing picture postcards. I wanted to create landscapes that were quite mysterious, I deliberately went in October and November because I was hoping for bad weather – and of course I got it. I find blue sky with white fluffy clouds deadly when it comes to creating a powerful landscape and I was looking for wind and rain and mist.'
Watch Albert speak about his practice and his 2023 show SKYE at Hamiltons here.
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This photograph shows the iconic Felix the Cat, which stands 7 feet tall in real life. Watson took the photo on Melrose Avenue in LA after spotting it during a location scout for Vogue Italy.
Felix the Cat is embedded in Los Angeles' cultural and historical visual landscape. He has stood atop the oldest Chevrolet dealership in the city since 1921 and is instantly recognisable to generations of Americans driving along the 110 Freeway in the city.
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Watson's background in graphic design can be seen throughout his career and particularly in his playful use of scale in this image of Helena Christensen for Vogue Italia. This image is from one of hundreds of assignments for Vogue across the world and demonstrates his ability to bridge graphic design and editorial photography to create his own unique style.
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Monkey with Gun, 1992, was conceived after Watson had been commissioned for another photoshoot in his New York studio featuring said Monkey – Casey. So impressed was the photographer with the monkey’s human expression when mimicking actions and his ability to handle an array of props such as hats, glasses and masks, that he requested the monkey returned to the studio to create , what is now, the iconic series. The most memorable shot from the series, Monkey with Gun, results in an image that is simultaneously humorous and unsettling as the monkey handles the gun so adeptly. Undoubtedly influenced by Watson's background in graphic design and Hollywood commissions, Monkey with Gun has been featured in several of Watson’s gallery and museum exhibitions and was the cover of his 2017 book ‘Kaos’
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A resident of America since the 1970s, quientessential imagery of his adopted country permeates a number of his editorial fashion work. This image of California native Carré Otis on a stylised motorbike encapsulates notions of open-road Americana and the highly influential subcultural style of bikers, captured by numerous preeminent photographers of the twentieth century.
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Taken in 1987, this was super model Christy Turlington's first major trip for a magazine, in this case Vogue Germany.
When working in editorial, Watson adds dimension by situating the shoot in wider contexts, thinking cinematically, devising storylines, seeing no hard-and-fast demarcation between his multiple disciplines.
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Watson's ouvre is populated by a number of personal projects of special interest to the artist. These works act as an almost anthropological record of some of the greatest artefacts and landscapes worldwide.
This image of Neil Armstrong's spacesuit that he wore during the moon landings of 1969 is both iconic and intimate. According to Aaron Watson, son of Albert and his studio manager: "Around the time Albert wanted to photograph artifacts from the Apollo missions, one of his assistants was a fellow named Visko Hatfield, son of longtime U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield. The only reason Albert got access was because Sen. Hatfield pulled some strings. Even back in the early ‘90s, NASA and the Smithsonian usually wouldn’t allow photographers access to the artifacts, considered national treasures. And nowadays, forget about it. (The Senator also helped Albert get access to artifacts from King Tut’s tomb in Egypt in the early ‘90s, a similar yet contrasting project.) Two of Albert’s photographs from the Apollo series are in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian in D.C."
