Adam Fuss

Early life

Adam Fuss was born in England in 1961. His father manufactured woman’s coats and his mother was an Australian fashion model. Fuss’s father suffered a stroke in 1963 and required constant care until his death in 1968. Fuss lived in Australia with his mother from 1967 to 1970 and again from 1971 to 1973. In 1980, he returned to Australia and began his career as a photographic apprentice at the Ogilvy & Mather Agency. In 1982 he moved to New York City and took a series of odd jobs, including that of a waiter in an art cafe and for parties at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fuss began a series of pinhole-camera images in 1984 and began exhibiting his work in 1985 at Massimo Audiello’s gallery. His works have since been exhibited in major museums and galleries around the world. He is known for photographing unusual subject matter with an emphasis on composition.

Images and technique

Fuss has embraced a range of historical and contemporary photographic techniques to capture a broad set of emotion-laden subject matter. Art critics often describe the artist’s work as speaking to the ephemerality of a moment in time and life itself. Fuss’s images have depicted babies, water droplets, christening dresses, moving light, snakes, sunflowers, rabbit entrails, and human skulls. Perhaps Fuss’s best known images are those of babies on their backs in shallow baths of water with ripples and droplets of water capturing the youngster’s motion. His most recent images (since 2003) have included concentric waves originating from a single water droplet (the “Ark” series), butterfly chrysalises, powder trails made by live snakes, and autobiographical childhood images.

Publications

Exhibitions

Gallery exhibitions

Collections

Awards