© Joel-Peter Witkin
Currently not on view
Studio of the Painter: Courbet, Paris 1990,
1990
Joel-Peter Witkin, American, born 1939
2004-86
Indebted to the Victorian photographic traditions of studio-based tableau and photomontage, Witkin’s meticulously staged scene revisits Gustave Courbet’s celebrated Studio of the Painter. In this monumental and enigmatic canvas, the artist is seen working at his easel, surrounded by models, friends (including the poet and critic Charles Baudelaire), contemporary social types, and personages from history and legend. Like Courbet’s painting, Witkin’s photograph is a meditation on the studio as a meeting place of unrealities. Witkin’s painter might or might not be present: his head is a gilded confection, his painting arm a blur, and his leg a vacant prosthesis. Near the artist’s wooden foot, a baboon shuffles toward the exit, a paintbrush gripped in his paw and held aloft like a torch.
Information
Title
Studio of the Painter: Courbet, Paris 1990
Dates
1990
Maker
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 73.1 x 98.5 cm. (28 3/4 x 38 3/4 in.)
mount: 81.7 x 101.9 cm. (32 3/16 x 40 1/8 in.)
frame: 86.2 × 111 × 1.6 cm (33 15/16 × 43 11/16 × 5/8 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, gift of William J. Salman, Class of 1955, in memory of his parents, Frances Delheim Salman and Colonel William Salman
Object Number
2004-86
Place Made
North America, United States
Inscription
Signed/inscribed on verso center: Joel Peter Witkin/© “Studio of the Painter: / Courbet” / Paris, 1990 / Given by William J. Salman to Princeton University / Class of 1955./ In Memory of his Parents / Frances Delheim Salman and / Colonel William Salman.
Culture
Techniques
