Charles Ruger’s first solo exhibition in 2004 was entitled Dream Capital. And so it began.
Villa d’Este crystal through the haze of a Sidecar
A Bay of Naples sunset, as Caligula saw it
The reluctant debutante that conquered an industry
A Cap d’ Antibes staircase that helped shape a World War
Matricide as the only option
A Palm Beach surfboard against a bronzed torso
The Chihuahuan Desert trail of a lone cowboy
A widow’s view from a Fifth Avenue penthouse
The photographic work of Charles Ruger serves as a window into a rarefied world that is at once enviable and dark, glorious and tragic, grand and doomed. This atmosphere of duality is expressed through his studies in portraiture and environment.
In the tradition of such historic, social portraitists as John Singer Sargent, Andy Warhol, and Slim Aarons, Ruger’s portrait subjects are fledgling icons in the worlds of the arts, music, literature, film, fashion, industry, and Society. However, he is not solely concerned with those shaping culture today, but also with the descendants of those who decidedly impacted the 20th century. As W magazine has stated, “If the greatest society portraitists are insiders, it’s no wonder that Charles Ruger has lured Serena, Boardman, Allison Sarofim and Ivanka Trump into his lens.”
As a counterpart to his portraits, Ruger captures images of grand interior spaces as fleeting views of the international environments through which his subjects move. Drawing rooms and stair halls of European hotels and private villas figure into these series. Similarly, urban landscapes of Manhattan skyscrapers and apartment house facades, as well as sweeping outlooks over the cloud-shadowed desert of the American West and the glistening bays of the Mediterranean further speak to this idea.
In regarding both the series of portraiture and environment as a whole, Ruger intends for a narrative to unfold. While his icons are highly stylized and glorified for posterity and reverence, their natural habitats are often more askew. These are spaces and vistas where something has gone, or might well soon, go awry. Though the characters are offered up to the viewer as pristine emblems of an era, the haunting patina of their corresponding surroundings indicates that not all is always right in their world.
Charles Ruger’s images have been featured in galleries internationally, been the subject of a one-man museum show, graced many glossy pages, and been curated into some of the world’s most esteemed, private collections.
He studied art history and international relations at Connecticut College and Columbia University. He is a self taught photographer who furthered his craft while enrolled in programs at the Fashion Institute of Technology, the School of Visual Arts and the International Center of Photography.