Joel-Peter Witkin was born on September 13, 1939 in Brooklyn, New York. Witkin worked as a war photographer during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1964. In 1967 he worked as a freelance photographer for City Walls Inc. Later he attended Cooper Union in New York where he studied sculpture and received his BFA in 1974. He received a scholarship from Columbia University and then received a MFA at the University of New Mexico. Witkin is famous for his complex tableauxs that feature everything from corpses and various society outsiders such as dwarfs, transsexuals, hermaphrodites and physically deformed people. Religion also plays a huge part in his art, as he was raised by a Jewish father and Catholic mother, who divorced when he was young because they couldn't get past their religious differences. Death is also another staple in his work and has a lot to do with a traumatic experience he witnessed when he was a young boy. He and his mother were leaving their apartment building in Brooklyn when a car crash occurred, decapitating a little girl in the process. The little girl's head rolled across the street from the car and ended up at Witkin's feet. Some people find Witkin's work to be highly disturbing but once you learn of this experience he went through as a child, it puts his work into perspective.
Here is an interview with Witkin by Cindy Marler, who was invited to pose for Witkin in Paris for two days in 2001.
I was unable to find an official website for Witkin but the closest thing I could find was
this website created by Dave Knipper.
Witkin's work was most recently exhibited at the
Galerie Baudoin Lebon in Paris in 2007.
A Day in the Country, 2003
Show Fucker and Woman Who Believes She's Becoming a Camera, 2003
Face of a Woman, 1999
Cupid & Centaur in the Museum of Love, 1996
Show Fucker and Woman Who Believes She's Becoming a Camera, 2003
Face of a Woman, 1999
Cupid & Centaur in the Museum of Love, 1996
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