About Thierry Bonnaffé
Thierry Bonnaffé studied architecture at Sint-Lucas in Ghent, Belgium, and got a degree in cinematography. He later completed his training in life drawing with R. Delrue. Besides having realised numerous projects in architecture and film, Bonnaffé is above all a passionate painter of the female figure. He regularly works on commission, draws film actresses and illustrates magazines. Besides drawing, Bonnaffé is also interested in portrait photography.
The Painter
Thierry Bonnaffé has made many portraits of women from the worlds of theatre and film, including portraits of Maaike Cafmeyer and Hilde de Baerdemaeker, and of the first female firefighter in Antwerp. He drew and photographed for Snoecks Almanak (1996–2006).
The Filmmaker
Bonnaffé worked for a time as a filmmaker at Daskafilms. In the early 1980s he made a series of films and documentaries on 8, 16 and 35 mm for the cinema: De Leugen (1980), Journal Quotidien (1980), Mudra (1981) for Béjart’s dance school, the short fiction film L’entrevue (1982), the making-of of De Vlasschaard (1982), André Delvaux draait Benvenuta (1983) with interviews with Fanny Ardant, Mathieu Carrière and Vittorio Gassman, Ode aan het staal (formerly Sidmar, now ArcelorMittal), and the making-of of Dust (1984) with interviews and testimonies from Trevor Howard, Marion Hänsel and Jane Birkin. Passionate about film, Thierry made various commercials, documentaries and reports before completing his magnum opus: GENT ANDERS BEKEKEN (2022).
The Photographer
As a photographer Thierry worked for Snoecks Almanak, among others, from 1996 to 2006.
“Bonnaffé’s work belongs to a movement of international artists influenced by basic principles inherited from the Renaissance.”