Ryan McGinley: Yearbook

Yearbook represents a decade’s worth of Ryan McGinley’s nude studio portraits documenting his vibrant community of artists and creatives. An exploration of personal identity and expanded notions of beauty, this is McGinley’s work at its most powerful.

Known for his outdoor photography of young people cavorting in the nude, McGinley ventures into the artist’s studio, creating more intimate portraits of his models in Yearbook. Continuing the approach of previous bodies of work, his sitters are often friends, and they exude a candid awareness of the camera, creating  joyful, dynamic images. As a master chronicler of downtown New York City for two decades, McGinley captures the lives of his diverse subjects, earning acclaim as the voice of his generation and indelibly capturing the contemporary zeitgeist.

The book features brief interviews with many of the models discussing their lives and work, providing an even more thoughtful understanding of the quixotic generations known as Gen Z and Millennials.

Ryan McGinley (b. 1977) is a New York–based artist who was raised in Ramsey, New Jersey. After moving to New York City, he began extensively photographing in the East Village. At age twenty-five, he became the youngest artist to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Over the last ten years, McGinley has traveled throughout the United States to create work incorporating nude figures active within the American landscape.