David Lynch

Born Missoula, Montana

In movies such as Eraserhead (1977), The Elephant Man (1980), and Blue Velvet (1986), David Lynch established himself as one of the most original and controversial directors of his generation. He probed the dark underside of small-town America as well as the country’s urban centers, creating films whose visual appearance and narrative structure challenged established conventions. Eccentric characters, eerie settings, and dreamlike—often nightmarish—sequences figure prominently in much of his work. The British photographer Richard Ansett alludes to Lynch’s surrealist tendencies in this portrait, taken atop the Dorchester Hotel in London.

Inspired by the films of Stanley Kubrick and the paintings of Francis Bacon, Lynch blurred genres and mediums. He is perhaps best remembered for his television show Twin Peaks (1990–91), which received fourteen Emmy nominations, and his neo-noir film Mulholland Drive (2001). In 2019, Lynch received an honorary Academy Award.