Douglas Kirkland

(Canadian, born 1934)

Douglas Kirkland is an American photographer renowned for his portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Brigitte Bardot, among others. “I have a genuine philosophy. I do not want to make negative pictures about people, and so I do everything I can to help make them feel comfortable in front of the camera,” he has explained. Born on August 16, 1934 in Fort Erie, Canada, he began his career as an apprentice to the acclaimed photographer Irving Penn in 1957. Five years later, Kirkland was put on an assignment for Look magazine to photograph Coco Chanel. He spent three weeks with the designer, following her daily routine of looking at models, meeting with clients, and working on clothes. Over the decades that followed, Kirkland was employed as a photographer on more than 100 films, and in 1995, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Motion Pictures Society of Operating Cameramen. He currently lives and works in Hollywood Hills, CA. Today, the artist’s photographs are held in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery in London, the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., among others.