Andrejs Grants

Andrejs Grants is a legendary Latvian photographer and teacher, whose contribution to popularising and educating about Latvian photographic art has been so profound that mention is often made of the “Grants school.”  For more than 30 years, Grants headed a photographic studio at the Riga Technical Creativity Centre “Annas 2,” where many prominent artists, photographers and cinematographers learned their craft, including Arnis Balčus, Gints Bērziņš, Anda Bankovska, Ritums Ivanovs, Ivars Grāvlejs and Ieva Epnere.

 Beginning in the 1970s, Grants influence led to a gradual shift in the dominant aesthetic of photography from salon aesthetics to subjective documentalism. The series “Colleagues, Friends, Acquaintances“ is an array of portraits of his contemporaries, begun in the 1970s and still ongoing. They document significant Latvian cultural figures, but not those we usually see “on stage.” Grants mainly focuses on alternative thinkers, whose work or lives place them outside the mainstream. The four photographs selected from this extensive series stand out for the intimacy of the captured subjects, achieved through lengthy observation an awaiting the “right moment.”  

Anita Kreituse. From the series “Colleagues, Friends, Acquaintances“. Apšuciems, 1995.

Normunds Kozlovs and Kristīne Briede. From the series “Colleagues, Friends, Acquaintances“. Riga, 2013.

Andris Grīnbergs. From the series “Colleagues, Friends, Acquaintances“. Mazirbe, 1996.

Normunds Naumanis. From the series “Colleagues, Friends, Acquaintances“. Riga, 1985.