To personally meet someone like Alexis de Vilar, author, photographer, and explorer changes your outlook on life, the extent of a life dedicated to faraway cultures that he immortalizes thanks to his inseparable camera.
A passionate and exciting man that exudes energy from all four sides; a person that imposes his presence, knowledge, works, and personal fulfillment. A simple and close imposition, not at all pretentious, always natural, pure vitality.
Alexis de Vilar was born in Barcelona and has dedicated his life to the fight “to save so-called primitive peoples, and the ecosystems that make up their natural habitats, from the advances of industrial society”.
His works as a writer has conquered the best newspaper and magazines around the world, and as a photographer has presented his work in art galleries and museums in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
A career filled with anecdotes, trips, and illustrious partners in life, vital enrichment and transcendent accomplishments such as Alan Watts, Cypriot President Makarios, Sir James Mancham (President of the Seychelles Islands), Frederick Forsyth and Larry Collins (writers and former war correspondents), Dr. Christiaan Barnard, Glenda Jackson, Michael Chaplin, Luis Buñuel, Arthur C. Clarke, Ivan Illich and Henry Miller, among many other personalities from the worlds of politics, arts, and sciences.
His active and generous fight in favor of the last traditional peoples have forced him to wage battles with unending energy against policies and economic interests from the highest levels of government. Because Alexis de Vilar is one of those activists that does not cease and continues to fight injustice, he denounces them and can claim honesty and a clean conscience.
His images transport us and touch us, true works of art changed into something eternal, on a canvas that gives rise to emotions which go beyond two dimensions until they acquire an ethical and aesthetic presence of unequaled value. Day to day photographs, touching landscapes, traditional tribes, faces, and amazing and heartwarming values, behind the lens.
A true hero of the XXth and XXst centuries, the “Cousteau of Land”, exactly how he was called by the celebrated Parisian editor Robert Laffont in 1992.
Knows all works Alexis de Vilar here
Hi Eric, good morning,
Just discovered your log and the post about my work. Thanks a lot, I appreciate your comments although I’m far from being a hero. Just trying to be a persona, a challenge which might take the rest of my days in this planet…
Also noticed that you are much involved in the hotel business and your apartments seem to be quite contemporary and yet charming. For your information I’m opening my first TASSILI, art gallery / space in Barcelona next October 15th in c/Beethoven, 6 (Turó Park). If you are around at this time you will be most welcome. It would be great if we could do some kind of collaboration in one of your hotels or apartments. At present I’m working in more conceptual subjects, many are diptychs or triptychs and XL formats so they need to be printed on canvas and displayed on a “bastidor”, that is unframed and without glass.
If you pass me your email address I’ll forward you with more info and a pdf of my latest photo book published by TASSILI BOOKS.
Hope I didn’t disturbe you…
With kind regards,
Alexis
The quirky, bold and insightful prism through which Alexis de Vilar views the world, is quite unlike any other photographer. His work is both a revelation and a celebration of the essence of what it means to be human and the spirit of place.