Barrett Barrera Projects manages the full Ann Ray photographic archive of Lee Alexander McQueen imagery.
Lee Alexander McQueen (1969-2010) redefined contemporary fashion with his extraordinary ability to blend exquisite craftsmanship with intimate and imaginative storytelling. Acquired by Barrett Barrera Projects in 2020, Ann Ray’s photographic archive of McQueen is an extraordinary record of the designer's creative process, working environment, and close collaborators. From their first meeting at the Givenchy ateliers in Paris in 1997 through McQueen’s final collections in 2010, Ray photographed his world with rare access and intimacy. During this period, she served as McQueen’s only in-house photographer, producing an important visual record of more than forty-three collections and the artistic process behind some of his most significant work.
The resulting archive includes more than 32,000 images, contact sheets, and vintage prints, and had remained largely unseen prior to its acquisition. Together with BBP’s McQueen fashion collection, the largest privately held collection of McQueen works, the Ann Ray photographic archive forms the foundation of BBP’s touring exhibition Lee Alexander McQueen & Ann Ray: Rendez-Vous. The archive is also available for curated exhibitions, image licensing, scholarship, and the sale of editioned works.
Artist Bio
Ann Ray
Multidisciplinary French artist, filmmaker, and author Ann Ray was born in 1969, the same year as McQueen. Her professional career began while working for Givenchy in Japan in the 1990s. While living there, she became immersed in Japanese culture and craftsmanship, learning philosophies of creation from senseis, or expert teachers, in various trades such as ceramics, painting, and kimono design. These relationships had a fundamental impact on her own art and professional life at Givenchy. When she met McQueen at Givenchy in Paris in 1997, marking the start of their thirteen-year creative partnership and friendship, the artistic point of view she learned in Japan formed the basis of their early conversations.
In the performing arts sphere, Ray works for Opéra Garnier in Paris and New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Her work has been exhibited at venues worldwide, including Palais du Tau in Reims, Palais Garnier in Paris, Ca’Pesaro Museum in Venice, the Museum at FIT in New York, and Rencontres d’Arles.
Ray's artworks appear in art collections internationally, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and Fondation Carmignac (Paris). She has published seven books, including Nicolas Le Riche (2008), Love Looks Not with the Eyes (2012), Les Inachevés (2018), and Eyes Shut (2022). Ray works and lives in France between Paris and Brittany.
