Greg Olson: Seattle Art Museum Film Curator by Quinn Russell Brown

Private Story

Greg Olson: Seattle Art Museum Film Curator

Copyright Quinn Russell Brown 2024

Date of Work Feb 2019 - Feb 2019

Updated Apr 2019

Topics Conceptual, Editorial, Film, Film Stills, Photography, Portraiture

Greg Olson, pictured above at the wheel, has been screening film noir movies at the Seattle Art Museum since 1977. In other words, longer than anyone in the world. No exaggeration: His Film Noir Series is the longest-running noir program that exists. And since it’s in a fine art context, his work has helped elevate what was originally a campy and low-budget genre into a vaunted echelon on film history.

He also happens to be a David Lynch expert, authoring the biography David Lynch: Beautiful Dark in 2008. He’s currently working on a project about the reboot of Twin Peaks.

So… a little film noir, a little David Lynch. When I got assigned to photograph Olson for the University of Washington magazine, I decided to put him in the movies. He would be the private eye—the classic star of the film noir genre—and I cast models to fill other commons roles: the femme fatale, the detective, and the goon. To make things a bit weird, I decided from the start that the pictures would be drenched in magenta.

To spice up the online version of the article, the art director, Ken Shafer, whipped up posters: one for the quote-unquote movie, “Welcome to Noir Town,” and one for each character.

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Quinn Russell Brown

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