Californian Wildflowers

In 2014 and 2015, Pieter Hugo met the subjects of his photographs in San Francisco’s Tenderloin and Los Angeles’s Skid Row districts. The high-key lighting of the relentless California sun characterizes these outdoor portraits made in the city streets. Bold colors and chiaroscuro form the language used by Hugo to complement the expansive gestures and curving forms of his subjects—wild and unrestrained. Hugo pairs this theme of abandonment with a style that invokes Dutch Golden Age or Baroque master painters such as Caravaggio or Frans Hals. The intensity of attention similarly brought to these sitters in their engagement with Hugo is palpable. The resulting photographs—so completely steeped in a careful handling of shape, form, color, and light—transcend beyond their specific moment in time to embody an overarching timelessness. Too frequently overlooked, Hugo brings our attention to these wildflowers blooming from the uncommon Californian land and its elusive promise of prosperity. Uninhibited and lawless, we bear witness to a truth that only they are capable of transmitting.

Proceeds from the sale of this book will go to Homeless Youth Alliance, which strives to empower young people experiencing homelessness to protect themselves, to educate each other, to reduce harm within the community, and to transition off the streets.