Kevin Best is reinterpreting the still life paintings of the Dutch Golden Age in a new medium: photography. Best manages to freeze time and take us back to that golden era. He has amassed an extensive collection of items that featured in the original paintings: giant glass Roemers, delicate Kraak porcelain, German Westerwald jugs, agate and silver knives, silver cups, and 300-year-old bronze candlesticks that have miraculously survived. Each shot can take weeks or months to fully prepare. His meticulous technique follows the tradition of Dutch masters Pieter Claesz, David Bailly, and Willem Kalf. What he cannot find, he makes himself, using skills in wood turning, carpentry, set painting, and jewelry-making.
It is simply amazing that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the significance of each and every item used on the “canvas” of each shot and how they interact to form a narrative that had deep significance in a time of great wealth and fear, a narrative that resonates to this day.
From Advertising to Fine Art
Born in 1960 in Blenheim, New Zealand, Best spent two decades in Australian media as Creative Director at ARN/Take 2 (1980-2000) and Executive Group Creative Director at Austereo (2000-2009) before turning to photography full-time. He studied at The Australian Centre for Photography in Paddington, Sydney, where he now lives and works.
American Photo named him one of the 12 Flickr Superstars in their May 2009 issue, describing his work as having “the intense realism and luscious light of a Dutch painting.” His self-portrait after David Bailey was shortlisted for The 2009 Australian National Photographic Portrait Prize, which toured nationally. In 2011, Cartier commissioned his imagery to launch a new diamond range, and Architectural Digest Spain featured his work that same year. In 2008, Graft Architects commissioned enormous high-resolution still life works for the Gingko Bacchus Restaurant in Chengdu, China, a finalist in the 2009 American Institute of Architects Restaurant Design Awards.
Morandi, Museums, and Ocean Galleries
Beyond the Dutch Golden Age series, Best developed a body of work inspired by Giorgio Morandi, spending two years acquiring the exact same bottles and vessels used by the Italian painter and developing techniques to make photographs look painterly. The series earned him a shortlisting for the Eutick Memorial Still Life Award in 2018.
His work hangs permanently in the Conservatorium Hotel in Amsterdam, near the Rijksmuseum. In 2018, Holland America Line selected him as one of the inaugural artists for their ArtLink galleries, placing his work aboard cruise ships alongside photographers Oleg Oprisco, Nikolaj Lund, and Kate Blacklock. Editions remain available at LUMAS Galleries across New York, Paris, Zurich, Berlin, and other cities. He also published Still Life Photography, an interactive guide covering composition, lighting, and the history of the genre.
For more art that bridges historical tradition and contemporary craft, see Renaissance Portraits by Christian Tagliavini and Surreal Dreamscapes by Jeeyoung Lee.
