Manuel Outumuro

2022 Honoree / Achievement in Fashion

Manuel Outumuro was born in Galicia (Spain) and moved to Barcelona with his family as a very young boy. From an early age he stood out as having a special gift in all things artistic, and on completing his primary education he enrolled in the prestigious Massana school of arts and design, from which he graduated in Graphic Design.

As a graphic designer with his own studio and as art director of La Vanguardia magazine, his work has earned him several Laus awards; he has also served on the board of the ADG-FAD Association of Graphic Designers for the Promotion of the Arts.

In the mid-seventies he moved to New York and opened a studio on the Lower East Side, specializing in image and visual communication for the fashion industry. In 1990, Richard Martin, former Director of the FIT, invited him to curate and design the first ever retrospective on Elsa Peretti and her work for Tiffany & Co., a commission which awakened his passionate interest in the history of clothing.

Outumuro’s professional debut behind the camera came about by chance. Back in Barcelona and working as the art director on a shoot, the client’s photographer unexpectedly failed to turn up on the set, so Outumuro grabbed his old Pentax, which he habitually used to do making-ofs, and started taking photos. That first chance encounter of the camera and the model was nothing less than a revelation; so much so that it moved him to swap typography for photography. This was in the early nineties, and while Peter Lindbergh was documenting the supermodel phenomenon in other parts of the world, back in his own country Outumuro was making a name as the visual recorder of the first generation of Spanish top models.
His career was now entirely focused on photography, and with the launch of Spanish editions of the major international magazines, his fashion shots became a regular feature of Marie Claire, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and, above all, of the Sunday supplement of El País. Thirty years on, he is still a regular contributor to these iconic titles as well as directing fashion films and video clips.

Of Outumuro’ s ten published books, which together compile a large part of his work, he regards two as particularly significant: Outumuro Looks presents the 250 fashion photographs selected for his first major retrospective (Design Museum of Barcelona, 2010), and The Book of Portrait, a finely curated edition with over 200 photographs of outstanding personalities from different branches of the arts and culture. To date, his shots have been showcased in ten solo exhibitions in museums and institutions around the world, the most recent of which, titled Of Clay and Light, (PhotoEspaña, 2021), is an anthology of his finest portraits.

Outumuro has always considered photography to be essentially a craft, and he really does think of himself not as an artist but as an artisan. This basic philosophy acknowledges the love some people feel for the endeavor to which they dedicate their lives, and although most of his work is done to commission, he has always felt this to be fully compatible with a unique way of looking, a truly personal way of seeing.

Website: www.outumuro.com