David Raymond has been taking pictures of his life since he was eight years old. Everything since has followed from that first instinct, and it has taken him very far. Over the past thirty years he has assembled two major collections of surrealist and experimental photography whose depth, rarity, and singular vision have shaped the contemporary understanding of the movement across institutions and generations. Parallel to this, he has built a body of work as a filmmaker; executive producing films that have premiered at Sundance, Tribeca, and the Museum of Modern Art, and directing his own works that reflect the same surrealist preoccupations animating his collecting practice.

Widely regarded as one of the leading authorities on surrealist photography, Raymond’s work as a collector has led to significant institutional recognition. The Cleveland Museum of Art acquired and was gifted his first collection, which was presented as Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography: The David Raymond Collection (2014–15), with a catalogue co-published by Yale University Press. The Subversive Eye: Surrealist and Experimental Photography from the David Raymond Collection opened at the Dalí Museum in late 2024, accompanied by a published catalogue of the same title, further establishing his role in shaping the evolving discourse surrounding surrealism and the photographic image.

Raymond’s curatorial work extends this vision into the present. Most recently, he co-curated My Silence Is Made of Explosions at VISU Contemporary in Miami Beach, situating contemporary artists within the radical lineage of surrealism while foregrounding the enduring influence of women artists in redefining the gaze and destabilizing conventional notions of identity, power, and representation.

From 2000 to 2004, Raymond served as an advisor to the Getty Museum, contributing to the development of its holdings in works by Dorothea Lange and Manuel Álvarez Bravo. In 2006, he served as Artistic Director for Magnum Photos at Paris Photo. He has lectured internationally at institutions and festivals including the Ministry of Culture in Paris, Lincoln Center, Paris Photo, Fotofest, Fotofocus, and the International Society for the Study of Surrealism.

Parallel to his work as a collector and curator, Raymond maintains an active creative practice. His photographic, video, and conceptual works have been exhibited in New York, Paris, Berlin, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, and Miami, including Other People’s Pictures, an ongoing exploration of authorship, memory, image circulation, and the instability of perception.

As a filmmaker, Raymond has executive produced and supported a body of work recognized across major international festivals. Projects including Restless City and Mother of George premiered at Sundance, while other productions have screened at Tribeca and the Museum of Modern Art (The Toe Tactic was added to their permanent collection). He co-wrote, co-directed, and co-produced The Last Letter Writer (2021), and co-produced The Last Ecstatic Days (2023), an exploration of conscious dying and the mystery surrounding the end of life.

Underlying Raymond’s work is a lifelong interest in perception, symbolism, dream states, and the fluid boundary between inner and outer reality. His travels have included time in the Peruvian Amazon with Shipibo healers and time in the Himalayas among Bon practitioners; experiences that deepened his understanding of surrealism not simply as an artistic movement, but as a way of encountering the world.

Music, healing traditions, and explorations of consciousness continue to play an important role in Raymond’s creative and philosophical life.

Raymond was a founding board member of Performa and continues to support photographic culture through advisory roles, curatorial collaborations, and ongoing collecting. He lives and works in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina with his wife, daughter and their dog, Tristan Tzara.