Joel-Peter Witkin b. 1939

unique, oversized gelatin silver print with encaustic, mounted to aluminum, an engraved plaque, titled, dated, and with the photographer's and toner's credits, affixed to the reverse, in a frame designed to the photographer's specifications, two Weston Gallery, Carmel, labels on the reverse, 1993

Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Acquired by Margaret W. Weston from the above, 1995

Another print of this image:

Germano Celant, Joel-Peter Witkin (Zürich, 1995), pl. 105

R. H. Craven, in his profile of Joel-Peter Witkin (Aperture, No. 300, Fall 1993, p. 57), describes the encaustic process used by the photographer on the print offered here:

 '"Burned" onto aluminum, the image is subtly, pointillistically colored by Cynthia Witkin [the photographer's wife at the time].  A layer of wax is applied and buffed with the palm of the hand for up to fifteen hours.  After "resting" through three months of temperature changes, the waxing-buffing is repeated, and once again three months after that.  Witkin rarely undertakes this arduous process, and then makes only a single encaustic rendering of an image, which becomes a unique work; straight photographic prints of the same image make up his signed and numbered copies.'