id:			154906
accession number:	1989.471
share license status:	Copyrighted
url:			https://clevelandart.org/art/1989.471
updated:		2024-03-26 02:00:07.130000

Man without Legs, New York City, 1984. Joel-Peter Witkin (American, 1939-). Gelatin silver print; image: 36.6 x 37.9 cm (14 7/16 x 14 15/16 in.); paper: 50.4 x 40.6 cm (19 13/16 x 16 in.); matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Museum members in 1989 1989.471

title:				Man without Legs, New York City
title in original language:	
series:				
series in original language:	
creation date:			1984
creation date earliest:		1984
creation date latest:		1984
current location:		
creditline:			Gift of Museum members in 1989
copyright:			

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culture:	America, 20th century
technique:	gelatin silver print
department:	Photography
collection:	PH - American 1951-Present
type:		Photograph
find spot:	
catalogue raisonne: 

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CREATORS

* Joel-Peter Witkin (American, 1939-)  - artist
Joel-Peter Witkin American, 1939- According to Joel-Peter Witkin, his provocative, often horrific imagery "reflects the insanity of life." Drawing from his Catholic upbringing, paragons of Western art, the history of photography, and his own life experience, Witkin uses iconography, including physically abnormal persons, those with nonstandard sexual persuasions, and remains of corpses posed in disturbing tableaux, that is at once beautiful and demonic, perverse and profound. While many of his subjects represent the deepest, and often ugliest, aspects of human nature, he realizes "a form of beauty" in everything. Beneath their sumptuous surfaces, printed to technical perfection, Witkin's photographs touch on taboos that are at times little more than curiosities; at others, unavoidably seductive. "Art to me," he says of the process, "is a condition of being, of spirit, that is presented so strongly and convincingly that it's held together by an ethos of physicality." Witkin (born in New York City) served as a combat photographer for the U.S. Army from 1961-64. He attended Cooper Union in New York (B.F.A. in sculpture, 1974) and the University of New Mexico (M.F.A. in photography, 1986). He has received grants from the New York Creative Artists Public Service (1974), the Ford Foundation (1977), the National Endowment for the Arts (1981, 1986, 1992), Art Matters (1986), and the Chevalier des arts et des lettres (1990). His work has been shown in one-person exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1985), the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (1986), the Kunstverein, Frankfurt (1988), the Museum of Modern Art, Haifa (1991), and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1996). He lives in Albuquerque. A.W.
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measurements: Image: 36.6 x 37.9 cm (14 7/16 x 14 15/16 in.); Paper: 50.4 x 40.6 cm (19 13/16 x 16 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
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inscriptions:

	inscription:	Written in pencil on verso: "Joel-Peter Witkin [signed] /  'Man Without Legs' / N.Y.C. 1984 / 3/15"; "J.W. 132"
	translation:	
	remark:		

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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

	title:		Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art
	opening date:   1996-11-24T05:00:00
	<i>Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997).

	title:		Portraiture: American Photography 1960 to the Present
	opening date:   2009-06-01T00:00:00
	<i>Portraiture: American Photography 1960 to the Present</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 1-September 13, 2009).

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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS

* {'description': 'CMA, Feb. 6 - April 15, 1990: "Year in Review 1989," CMA Bulletin, 77 (Feb. 1990), p. 72, no. 132 (not exhibited).', 'opening_date': '1990-02-06T00:00:00'}

* {'description': 'CMA, November 20,1996 - February 2, 1997: "Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art," no catalogue', 'opening_date': '1997-02-02T00:00:00'}

* {'description': 'The Cleveland Museum of Art (06/01/2009 - 09/13/2009); "Portraiture: American Photography 1960 to the Present"', 'opening_date': '2009-06-01T00:00:00'}

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PROVENANCE

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RELATED WORKS

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CITATIONS

	Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. <em>Catalogue of Photography</em>. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.
	page number: 	Reproduced: P. 398
	url:		

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IMAGES