The photographic work of Charles Ruger serves as a window into a rarified world that is at once enviable and dark, glorious and tragic, grand and doomed. This atmosphere of duality is expressed through his studies in portraiture and circumstance.

In the tradition of such historic social portraitists as John Singer Sargent, Andy Warhol and Slim Aarons, Ruger’s subjects are fledgling icons in the worlds of art, music, literature, film, fashion, and Society. However, he is not solely concerned with those shaping culture today, but also with the descendents of those who influenced the 20th century. As the grandson of a legendary American industrialist, Ruger is drawn to those that impact contemporary society as well as those who have grown under the influence of such human forces of an earlier time. As W magazine has stated, “If the greatest society portraitists are insiders, it’s no wonder that New York social fixture Charles Ruger has lured Serena Boardman, Allison Sarofim and Ivanka Trump into his lens.”

Ruger’s multi-staged process involves casting a subject, identifying the defining elements of his or her life, work, and interests, and then choosing a pre-existing location or creating a set that will convey these traits. As in 19th century portrait painting, fashion plays a strong role in each composition with the wardrobes and accessories most typically being the sitters' own, reinforcing the authenticity of the respective portrayal.

Ruger's subjects are always presented in a gratuitously idealized manner. Each image represents a rendering of the subject as perfection. Whether the mood of a sitting is ethereal or austere, melancholy or tense, the final portrait is determined to be unambiguously beautiful.

As a counterpart to the portraits, Ruger shoots images of grand interior and exterior spaces as fleeting views of the international environments through which his subjects move. Drawing rooms and stair halls of European hotels and private villas figure into these series, as do urban landscapes of American skyscrapers and apartment house edifices. Unlike the body of portraits, however, these studies of circumstance are shot in a much less composed manner. They involve movement, blur, and tricks of the eye.

In regarding both the series of portraiture and circumstance as a whole, Ruger intends for a narrative to unfold. While his icons are monumental, stylized and glorified, their natural habitats are decidedly more askew. Spaces and vistas where something has gone awry - perhaps as seen through a veil of hallucinogens, alcohol or malaise. Though the characters are offered to the viewer as pristine monuments of an era, the haunting patina of their corresponding surroundings indicates that not all is right in this exalted sphere.

Charles Ruger studied art history and politics at Connecticut College and Columbia University. He is a self-taught photographer whose work figures into private and corporate collections internationally. He lives and works in New York City.