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Joel-Peter Witkin
Joel-Peter Witkin
Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin

American, born 1939
Location of BirthBrooklyn, New York, United States of America, North America
Active LocationAlbuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America, North America
BiographyWitkin broke into art-world consciousness in the 1980s, even before completing his M.F.A. at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and assuming teaching duties there. Witkin continues to live and work in Albuquerque and as a New Mexico-based artist of international reputation, is worthy of a representative holding at the state museum, which presently has four gelatin silver prints (dating 1981, 1984, 1987, 1996), a 1999 etching, and a portfolio of ten etchings by the artist. The state collection should offer a stronger selection of work by this longtime New Mexico-based artist of international reputation. This small group of three prints, two from early in his career and one from the later period, would join with present holdings to create a more representative group in terms of development, as well as date and subject range.

Witkin earned a B.F.A. in sculpture at Cooper Union in 1974 and began the black-and-white photo series “Evidences of Anonymous Atrocities,” of which this print is a part, the following year. Within a year, he had moved to New Mexico and made this image as part of the series, which shows a seated woman pushed into a blank corner of a room, wearing an eye-shade and strappy sandals and holding a white dog on her lap. The ambiguous situation and unseen faces foster a sense of unease and the image bears some of the hallmarks of what would become his mature work and is thus of interest as an early piece.



Person TypeIndividual