Tilda Swinton and Tim Walker: like-minded creatives

As part of the ongoing exhibition Tilda Swinton – Ongoing, Swinton and Walker will speak about their collaborative process and show photographs they have created together. Their close, ever-evolving creative friendship began almost a decade and a half ago. Their process will also be illuminated through a unique screening of a Super 8 film Walker shot during one of their photo sessions.

Tim Walker: dreamer extraordinaire

The name Tim Walker will ring many bells among photography and culture enthusiasts. Born in England in 1970, he began taking photographs at a young age. At eighteen he spent a year working in the Cecil Beaton Archive at the Condé Nast Library in London. That experience confirmed his path: he would study photography, which he did at the Exeter College of Art. After graduating, he worked as an assistant to Richard Avedon in New York, and by the age of twenty-five he had secured his first major commission for British Vogue. Over the years he would form an intimate bond with the magazine, as well as with leading fashion and style titles such as W Magazine, i-D, AnOther Magazine and LOVE Magazine.

Walker's work immediately stood out for its imaginative and surreal qualities, inspired by his love of fairy tales and his thirst for adventure. He creates elaborate dreamworlds, almost always using hand-built sets, props and extraordinary models. A photograph should work at the moment of its making, he believes – not rely on digital editing afterwards. This early and steadfast commitment to analogue craft set Walker apart long before digital shortcuts became the norm. A champion of unconventional beauty, he has collaborated with distinctive models and performers such as Karen Elson, Kate Moss, Edie Campbell and… Tilda Swinton. Their paths crossed for the first time in 2011.

Tilda and Tim

A photoshoot for the prestigious American fashion magazine W Magazine marked the first of many collaborations between Tilda and Tim, and the beginning of a deep friendship. For the magazine’s September issue, Swinton transformed into whatever Walker dreamed up. Together they created a moodboard. Sources of inspiration included Tilda’s father, Major-General Sir John Swinton; Greta Garbo; imagery from Ingmar Bergman’s Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal); and David Bowie, who had been a style icon for Swinton ever since she saw The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). The resulting fashion story was a stunning collaboration between two wildly imaginative artists with seemingly boundless creative freedom.

Swinton and Walker see each other as artistic equals and propel each other to ever greater creative heights. Considering their personalities, it is no surprise that a friendship developed: both revel in boundless imagination and fluid identities. In interviews, Swinton has said she feels a deep artistic kinship with Walker – a shared commitment to surrendering to imagination and crafting alternate universes through photography.

Walker, in turn, approaches each portrait with meticulous preparation, studying the motivations and passions of his subjects to forge a genuine connection. For Swinton, this rigour and passion are deeply relatable. Identity, for her, is fluid – as are gender and appearance. She steps easily into any role Walker conceives, pushing the limits of identity and fashion. The ever-undefinable Swinton is the perfect muse.

Together, they have created a wealth of singular, avant-garde editorials. The most renowned fashion houses – Louis Vuitton, Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Haider Ackermann, Jean Paul Gaultier Couture, Rick Owens, Azzedine Alaïa, Hermès – are eager to dress her, and she shines in haute couture like a consummate supermodel. They continued their collaborations for W Magazine in 2013, 2014, 2018 and, most recently, 2023 – perhaps their most exceptional shoot to date.

Family matters

In the fashion story Personal History, Tilda embodied her aristocratic ancestors, accompanied by her twins, Xavier and Honor. The inspiration came from two portraits that hung in her childhood home in Scotland, painted by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), arguably the greatest portraitist of his era. They depict Elizabeth “Elsie” Swinton, Tilda’s great-grandmother and wife of George Swinton. “She was my North Star,” Swinton said in the accompanying W Magazine interview. “Her almost glamorous, artistic presence – her radiance and independence – enchanted and guided me.”

With that inspiration in mind, Walker, his creative team, Swinton and her children travelled to a country house in Scotland on a warm summer’s day. The house, its walled gardens, greenhouses and vegetable beds were transformed into a “Walker landscape”, resulting in a magical, imagined fantasy setting. Here, the Swintons acted out a kind of historical reenactment of their own family line. Tilda appeared both as Elsie and as George, and Xavier wore a similar uniform to that worn by his great-great-grandfather George in his role as Lord Lyon, King of Arms.

Vagabonds and freaks

The shoot was intense – and deeply personal – for Swinton and her children. It became a way of connecting with their ancestors by temporarily “playing” them. Swinton has long felt a strong bond with Elsie, an outspoken mezzo-soprano who held a prominent position in the Scottish upper class. She described Elsie as “perhaps my first encounter with someone from a community of artists – a world of camaraderie and kinship between vagabonds and freaks, which I was also seeking.”

Swinton recognised a kindred spirit in the rebellious Elsie. Walker, in turn, drew out and captured these emotions with precision. Portraying her ancestors felt “profoundly cleansing and encouraging”, Swinton said. “By stepping back in time, we were also stepping forward in understanding where we come from.” The synergy between Walker, his creative vision and his fantastical sets made this an exceptional photographic endeavour – a true wonder of image-making.