(1939- )
His Jewish father was an immigrant from Lithuania and his Catholic mother was from Italian stock. He has a son and a twin brother, Jerome Paul Witkin, who is a well-known painter.
Witkin’s parents divorced when he was a child because of religious differences. After primary schooling at Saint Cecilia’s in Brooklyn he went to Grover Cleveland High School. During his military service he was assigned to various reporting
tasks and received basic training in photography. Despite a persistent legend, and the fact that Vietnam War was in full swing at the time, Witkin was not sent to the battlefields as a war correspondent, but was asked to document everyday
life of regiment base in Europe and elsewhere, particularly the rate of accidents and suicides.
When he left the army, he studied art at the Cooper Union, and earned a Bachelor of Art degree. In 1974 he received a grant from the University of Colombia. He then moved to Albuquerque (New Mexico), where he still lives today, and enr-
olled at the University of New Mexico. He graduated as a Master of Fine Arts. This was when his career as a photographer began in earnest.
Witkin has often recounted his early research and the way he began to use staged photography and abnormal models, recruited through chance encounters or through classified ads. In particular he talks about his time with a freak show and
making friends with his stars. He subsequently developed a highly individual style of photography and printmaking. He does his own printing, making only a few copies, and takes few photographs.
Although he is not a reporter or event photographer, he travels widely. He is receptive to different cultures and the atmosphere that emanates from them. He takes photographs in many different countries, systematically setting the stage with
great attention to details.
Witkin’s artistic culture is immense, and his knowledge of the plastic vocabulary and themes of great art – classical and modern – transpires in his choices of subjects, staging, and viewing angles. He sometimes reinterprets works by classic-
al painters such as Goya, Courbet, Manet… Whether clearly stated in the titles or merely an underlying presence, this element is a constant in his oeuvre.
Instead, he applies collage effects manually on the final print. The image is thought out beforehand, usually prepared with meticulous pencil or charcoal drawings. The highly individual elaboration of the image, that makes his photographs
immediately identifiable, is done during the printing stage. He has developed great skill with a number of very personal procedures (scratching, tearing or standing the negative, inserting filters and various obstacles between the support and
the enlarger), and will go to any lengths in his printing methods. He enters the darkroom, and does not stop working until he achieves the perfect print. This is a particularly crucial point, because many photographers delegate this phase of
production to a printer: for Witkin the material process of creation is of capital importance. What Witkin exhibits is certainly a “subject”, but it is also a very substance of the photograph, an object in itself. What Manet did for painting – that is,
demonstrate the importance of the paint and the canvas beyond themes and anecdotes – Witkin does for photography.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2013 Il maestro dei suoi maestri, Museo Nazionale Alinari della Fotografia, Florence, Italy
2012 History of the White World, Baudoin Lebon Gallery, Paris, France
2012 , Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris, France
2012 , Baudoin Lebon Gallery, Paris, France
2010 Maison des Arts, Brno
2010 Baudoin Lebon Gallery, paris, France
2007 Palazzo Mediceo, Seravezza Galleria Ca di Fra, Milan.
2007 Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris.
2007 , Musée Rops, Maison de la Culture, Namur.
2006 Recent Artworks, Le Café Français, Brussels
2006 Recent Artworks, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (Photography Month).
2006 Recent Artworks, Espace Jules Valles, Saint Martin d’Hères.
2005 , Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago.
2005 , Klein Gallery, Los Angeles.
2005 , Moscow House of Photography.
2005 , Gary Tatintsian Gallery, Moscou.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2016 AIPAD, Baudoin Lebon Gallery, NY
2015 Ames qui vivent, Baudoin Lebon Gallery, France
2014 Hysteria, Baudoin Lebon Gallery, Paris, France
2013 Art O’Clock, Paris, France
2013 Summa Art Fair, Madrid, Spain
2013 Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa
2012 Art O’ Clock, Paris, France
2012 Paris Photo 2012
2000 , Musée Bourdelle, Paris.
2000 , Centre photographique d’Ile de France, Pontault-Combault.
2000 , Musée de l’Élysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
2000 , Galerie Sabine Puget, Paris.
2000 , Rotterdam, Holland
1999 , Siena Heights University, Adrian, Michigan.
1999 , Bern, Switzerland
1999 , High Museum, Atlanta, USA
1999 , between Neoclassicism and Neuroticism, Photology, Milan, Italy
1999 , JPW, Unpublished and Unseen Work, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe.
1998 , Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Genève.
1998 , Photographic Center of Skopelos, Skopelos, Greece
1998 , Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris.
Public Collections
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New-York
Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, NM.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Museum of Art of Cleveland, Ohio
Paul Getty Museum, California
Museum of Fine Arts of San Francisco
Center for Creative Photography – University of Arizona, Tucson
Museum of contemporary photography. Columbia College Chicago.
Williams College Museum of art, Williamstown
The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Los Angeles County Museum of Arte, Los Angeles.
Museum of Contemporary Photography.
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid.
Museo de Arte Abstracto Español, Cuenca, Spain
The Victoria and Albert Museum, Londres. Great Britain
Museo d’arte contemporanea Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy
Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain , Strasbourg.
Fonds National d’art Contemporain, Paris.
Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France