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Portrait Photography For Sale
Period: Early 2000s
Period: 1990s
Love - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid, Figurative, Photograph, Nude
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Love (The Princess and her Lover) part of the 29 Palms, CA project, 2007, Edition of 1/10, 20x24cm. Digital C-Print based on a Polaroid. Not mounted. Signature label and Certifica...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Tropics Motor Motel I (Memories of Green)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Tropics Motor Motel I (Memories of Green) - 1999 58x56cm, Edition 1/10, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on a Polaroid, Artist inven...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Waiting (Sidewinder) - Contemporary, Nude, Figurative, Polaroid, expired
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Waiting (Sidewinder) - 2005 98x97cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No....
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Untitled (Fairytales) - analog, Contemporary, Polaroid, Color
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Untitled (Fairytales) - 2006 48x59cm, Edition 3/5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, matte finish, based on the original Polaroid. Certif...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid, Archival Paper

Radha Pink - 130x130cm LAST EDITION - Contemporary, 20th Century, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
'Radha Pink' (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 130x128cm, sold out Edition of 5, Artist Proof 2/2 (last), analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on a...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

First Kiss (Till Death do us Part)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
First Kiss (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x24cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory ...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Living Room (29 Palms, CA) - Polaroid, Contemporary
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Living Room (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 58x56cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

On the Run (Till Death do us Part) Contemporary, Woman, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
On the Run (Till Death do us Part) - 2005, 24x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventor...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Parchment Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Laundry
Located in New York, NY
Digital C-print Stamped and numbered, verso 20 x 24 inches (Edition of 10) 30 x 40 inches (Edition of 5) 50 x 60 inches (Edition of 3) This photograph is offered by ClampArt, loc...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

C Print

Actor Girl II (29 Palms, CA)- including the book 'A Half Forgotten Dream'
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Actor Girl II (Stage of Consciousness) - 2008 including Stefanie Schneider's new monograph "A Half Forgotten Dream" signed. 192 pages, hardcover, published by Snap Collective, 2024....
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

My own private Travel Diary - Bishop, CA - Autumn
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
My own private Travel Diary - Bishop, CA - Autumn - 2001, 20x29cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid Slide. Signature label and Certificate. Not mounted. LIFE’S A DREAM (The Personal World of Stefanie Schneider) by Mark Gisbourne Projection is a form of apparition that is characteristic of our human nature, for what we imagine almost invariably transcends the reality of what we live. And, an apparition, as the word suggests, is quite literally ‘an appearing’, for what we appear to imagine is largely shaped by the imagination of its appearance. If this sounds tautological then so be it. But the work of Stefanie Schneider is almost invariably about chance and apparition. And, it is through the means of photography, the most apparitional of image-based media, that her pictorial narratives or photo-novels are generated. Indeed, traditional photography (as distinct from new digital technology) is literally an ‘awaiting’ for an appearance to take place, in line with the imagined image as executed in the camera and later developed in the dark room. The fact that Schneider uses out-of-date Polaroid film stock to take her pictures only intensifies the sense of their apparitional contents when they are realised. The stability comes only at such time when the images are re-shot and developed in the studio, and thereby fixed or arrested temporarily in space and time. The unpredictable and at times unstable film she adopts for her works also creates a sense of chance within the outcome that can be imagined or potentially envisaged by the artist Schneider. But this chance manifestation is a loosely controlled, or, better called existential sense of chance, which becomes pre-disposed by the immediate circumstances of her life and the project she is undertaking at the time. Hence the choices she makes are largely open-ended choices, driven by a personal nature and disposition allowing for a second appearing of things whose eventual outcome remains undefined. And, it is the alliance of the chance-directed material apparition of Polaroid film, in turn explicitly allied to the experiences of her personal life circumstances, that provokes the potential to create Stefanie Schneider’s open-ended narratives. Therefore they are stories based on a degenerate set of conditions that are both material and human, with an inherent pessimism and a feeling for the sense of sublime ridicule being seemingly exposed. This in turn echoes and doubles the meaning of the verb ‘to expose’. To expose being embedded in the technical photographic process, just as much as it is in the narrative contents of Schneider’s photo-novel exposés. The former being the unstable point of departure, and the latter being the uncertain ends or meanings that are generated through the photographs doubled exposure. The large number of speculative theories of apparition, literally read as that which appears, and/or creative visions in filmmaking and photography are self-evident, and need not detain us here. But from the earliest inception of photography artists have been concerned with manipulated and/or chance effects, be they directed towards deceiving the viewer, or the alchemical investigations pursued by someone like Sigmar Polke. None of these are the real concern of the artist-photographer Stefanie Schneider, however, but rather she is more interested with what the chance-directed appearances in her photographs portend. For Schneider’s works are concerned with the opaque and porous contents of human relations and events, the material means are largely the mechanism to achieving and exposing the ‘ridiculous sublime’ that has come increasingly to dominate the contemporary affect(s) of our world. The uncertain conditions of today’s struggles as people attempt to relate to each other - and to themselves - are made manifest throughout her work. And, that she does this against the backdrop of the so-called ‘American Dream’, of a purportedly advanced culture that is Modern America, makes them all the more incisive and critical as acts of photographic exposure. From her earliest works of the late nineties one might be inclined to see her photographs as if they were a concerted attempt at an investigative or analytic serialisation, or, better still, a psychoanalytic dissection of the different and particular genres of American subculture. But this is to miss the point for the series though they have dates and subsequent publications remain in a certain sense unfinished. Schneider’s work has little or nothing to do with reportage as such, but with recording human culture in a state of fragmentation and slippage. And, if a photographer like Diane Arbus dealt specifically with the anomalous and peculiar that made up American suburban life, the work of Schneider touches upon the alienation of the commonplace. That is to say how the banal stereotypes of Western Americana have been emptied out, and claims as to any inherent meaning they formerly possessed has become strangely displaced. Her photographs constantly fathom the familiar, often closely connected to traditional American film genre, and make it completely unfamiliar. Of course Freud would have called this simply the unheimlich or uncanny. But here again Schneider almost never plays the role of the psychologist, or, for that matter, seeks to impart any specific meanings to the photographic contents of her images. The works possess an edited behavioural narrative (she has made choices), but there is never a sense of there being a clearly defined story. Indeed, the uncertainty of my reading here presented, acts as a caveat to the very condition that Schneider’s photographs provoke. Invariably the settings of her pictorial narratives are the South West of the United States, most often the desert and its periphery in Southern California. The desert is a not easily identifiable space, with the suburban boundaries where habitation meets the desert even more so. There are certain sub-themes common to Schneider’s work, not least that of journeying, on the road, a feeling of wandering and itinerancy, or simply aimlessness. Alongside this subsidiary structural characters continually appear, the gas station, the automobile, the motel, the highway, the revolver, logos and signage, the wasteland, the isolated train track and the trailer. If these form a loosely defined structure into which human characters and events are cast, then Schneider always remains the fulcrum and mechanism of their exposure. Sometimes using actresses, friends, her sister, colleagues or lovers, Schneider stands by to watch the chance events as they unfold. And, this is even the case when she is a participant in front of camera of her photo-novels. It is the ability to wait and throw things open to chance and to unpredictable circumstances, that marks the development of her work over the last eight years. It is the means by which random occurrences take on such a telling sense of pregnancy in her work. However, in terms of analogy the closest proximity to Schneider’s photographic work is that of film. For many of her titles derive directly from film, in photographic series like OK Corral (1999), Vegas (1999), Westworld (1999), Memorial Day (2001), Primary Colours (2001), Suburbia (2004), The Last Picture Show (2005), and in other examples. Her works also include particular images that are titled Zabriskie Point, a photograph of her sister in an orange wig. Indeed the tentative title for the present publication Stranger Than Paradise is taken from Jim Jarmusch’s film of the same title in 1984. Yet it would be dangerous to take this comparison too far, since her series 29 Palms (1999) presages the later title of a film that appeared only in 2002. What I am trying to say here is that film forms the nexus of American culture, and it is not so much that Schneider’s photographs make specific references to these films (though in some instances they do), but that in referencing them she accesses the same American culture that is being emptied out and scrutinised by her photo-novels. In short her pictorial narratives might be said to strip films of the stereotypical Hollywood tropes that many of them possess. Indeed, the films that have most inspired her are those that similarly deconstruct the same sentimental and increasingly tawdry ‘American Dream’ peddled by Hollywood. These include films like David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990) The Lost Highway (1997), John Dahl’s The Last Seduction (1994) or films like Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise with all its girl-power Bonny and Clyde-type clichés. But they serve no more than as a backdrop, a type of generic tableau from which Schneider might take human and abstracted elements, for as commercial films they are not the product of mere chance and random occurrence. Notwithstanding this observation, it is also clear that the gender deconstructions that the characters in these films so often portray, namely the active role of women possessed of a free and autonomous sexuality (even victim turned vamp), frequently find resonances within the behavioural events taking place in Schneider’s photographs and DVD sequences; the same sense of sexual autonomy that Stefanie Schneider possesses and is personally committed to. In the series 29 Palms (first begun in 1999) the two women characters Radha and Max act out a scenario that is both infantile and adolescent. Wearing brightly coloured fake wigs of yellow and orange, a parody of the blonde and the redhead, they are seemingly trailer park white trash possessing a sentimental and kitsch taste in clothes totally inappropriate to the locality. The fact that Schneider makes no judgment about this is an interesting adjunct. Indeed, the photographic projection of the images is such that the girls incline themselves to believe that they are both beautiful and desirous. However, unlike the predatory role of women in say Richard Prince’s photographs, which are simply a projection of a male fantasy onto women, Radha and Max are self-contained in their vacuous if empty trailer and motel world of the swimming pool, nail polish, and childish water pistols. Within the photographic sequence Schneider includes herself, and acts as a punctum of disruption. Why is she standing in front of an Officers’ Wives Club? Why is Schneider not similarly attired? Is there a proximity to an army camp, are these would-be Lolita(s) Rahda and Max wives or American marine groupies, and where is the centre and focus of their identity? It is the ambiguity of personal involvement that is set up by Schneider which deliberately makes problematic any clear sense of narrative construction. The strangely virulent colours of the bleached-out girls stand in marked contrast to Schneider’s own anodyne sense of self-image. Is she identifying with the contents or directing the scenario? With this series, perhaps, more than any other, Schneider creates a feeling of a world that has some degree of symbolic order. For example the girls stand or squat by a dirt road, posing the question as to their sexual and personal status. Following the 29 Palms series, Schneider will trust herself increasingly by diminishing the sense of a staged environment. The events to come will tell you both everything and nothing, reveal and obfuscate, point towards and simultaneously away from any clearly definable meaning. If for example we compare 29 Palms to say Hitchhiker (2005), and where the sexual contents are made overtly explicit, we do not find the same sense of simulated identity. It is the itinerant coming together of two characters Daisy and Austen, who meet on the road and subsequently share a trailer together. Presented in a sequential DVD and still format, we become party to a would-be relationship of sorts. No information is given as to the background or social origins, or even any reasons as to why these two women should be attracted to each other. Is it acted out? Are they real life experiences? They are women who are sexually free in expressing themselves. But while the initial engagement with the subject is orchestrated by Schneider, and the edited outcome determined by the artist, beyond that we have little information with which to construct a story. The events are commonplace, edgy and uncertain, but the viewer is left to decide as to what they might mean as a narrative. The disaggregated emotions of the work are made evident, the game or role playing, the transitory fantasies palpable, and yet at the same time everything is insubstantial and might fall apart at any moment. The characters relate but they do not present a relationship in any meaningful sense. Or, if they do, it is one driven the coincidental juxtaposition of random emotions. Should there be an intended syntax it is one that has been stripped of the power to grammatically structure what is being experienced. And, this seems to be the central point of the work, the emptying out not only of a particular American way of life, but the suggestion that the grounds upon which it was once predicated are no longer possible. The photo-novel Hitchhiker is porous and the culture of the seventies which it might be said to homage is no longer sustainable. Not without coincidence, perhaps, the decade that was the last ubiquitous age of Polaroid film. In the numerous photographic series, some twenty or so, that occur between 29 Palms and Hitchhiker, Schneider has immersed herself and scrutinised many aspects of suburban, peripheral, and scrubland America. Her characters, including herself, are never at the centre of cultural affairs. Such eccentricities as they might possess are all derived from what could be called their adjacent status to the dominant culture of America. In fact her works are often sated with references to the sentimental sub-strata that underpin so much of American daily life. It is the same whether it is flower gardens and household accoutrements of her photo-series Suburbia (2004), or the transitional and environmental conditions depicted in The Last Picture Show (2005). The artist’s use of sentimental song titles, often adapted to accompany individual images within a series by Schneider, show her awareness of America’s close relationship between popular film and music. For example the song ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’, becomes Leaving in a Jet Plane as part of The Last Picture Show series, while the literalism of the plane in the sky is shown in one element of this diptych, but juxtaposed to a blonde-wigged figure first seen in 29 Palms. This indicates that every potential narrative element is open to continual reallocation in what amounts to a story without end. And, the interchangeable nature of the images, like a dream, is the state of both a pictorial and affective flux that is the underlying theme pervading Schneider’s photo-narratives. For dream is a site of yearning or longing, either to be with or without, a human pursuit of a restless but uncertain alternative to our daily reality. The scenarios that Schneider sets up nonetheless have to be initiated by the artist. And, this might be best understood by looking at her three recent DVD sequenced photo-novels, Reneé’s Dream and Sidewinder (2005). We have already considered the other called Hitchhiker. In the case of Sidewinder the scenario was created by internet where she met J.D. Rudometkin, an ex-theologian, who agreed to her idea to live with her for five weeks in the scrubland dessert environment of Southern California. The dynamics and unfolding of their relationship, both sexually and emotionally, became the primary subject matter of this series of photographs. The relative isolation and their close proximity, the interactive tensions, conflicts and submissions, are thus recorded to reveal the day-to-day evolution of their relationship. That a time limit was set on this relation-based experiment was not the least important aspect of the project. The text and music accompanying the DVD were written by the American Rudometkin, who speaks poetically of “Torn Stevie. Scars from the weapon to her toes an accidental act of God her father said. On Vaness at California.” The mix of hip reverie and fantasy-based language of his text, echoes the chaotic unfolding of their daily life in this period, and is evident in the almost sun-bleached Polaroid images like Whisky Dance, where the two abandon themselves to the frenetic circumstances of the moment. Thus Sidewinder, a euphemism for both a missile and a rattlesnake, hints at the libidinal and emotional dangers that were risked by Schneider and Rudometkin. Perhaps, more than any other of her photo-novels it was the most spontaneous and immediate, since Schneider’s direct participation mitigated against and narrowed down the space between her life and the art work. The explicit and open character of their relationship at this time (though they have remained friends), opens up the question as the biographical role Schneider plays in all her work. She both makes and directs the work while simultaneously dwelling within the artistic processes as they unfold. Hence she is both author and character, conceiving the frame within which things will take place, and yet subject to the same unpredictable outcomes that emerge in the process. In Reneé’s Dream, issues of role reversal take place as the cowgirl on her horse undermines the male stereotype of Richard Prince’s ‘Marlboro Country’. This photo-work along with several others by Schneider, continue to undermine the focus of the male gaze, for her women are increasingly autonomous and subversive. They challenge the male role of sexual predator, often taking the lead and undermining masculine role play, trading on male fears that their desires can be so easily attained. That she does this by working through archetypal male conventions of American culture, is not the least of the accomplishments in her work. What we are confronted with frequently is of an idyll turned sour, the filmic clichés that Hollywood and American television dramas have promoted for fifty years. The citing of this in the Romantic West, where so many of the male clichés were generated, only adds to the diminishing sense of substance once attributed to these iconic American fabrications. And, that she is able to do this through photographic images rather than film, undercuts the dominance espoused by time-based film. Film feigns to be seamless though we know it is not. Film operates with a story board and setting in which scenes are elaborately arranged and pre-planned. Schneider has thus been able to generate a genre of fragmentary events, the assemblage of a story without a storyboard. But these post-narratological stories require another component, and that component is the viewer who must bring their own interpretation as to what is taking place. If this can be considered the upside of her work, the downside is that she never positions herself by giving a personal opinion as to the events that are taking place in her photographs. But, perhaps, this is nothing more than her use of the operation of chance dictates. I began this essay by speaking about the apparitional contents of Stefanie Schneider’s pictorial narratives, and meant at that time the literal and chance-directed ‘appearing’ qualities of her photographs. Perhaps, at this moment we should also think of the metaphoric contents of the word apparition. There is certainly a spectre-like quality also, a ghostly uncertainty about many of the human experiences found in her subject matter. Is it that the subculture of the American Dream, or the way of life Schneider has chosen to record, has in turn become also the phantom of it former self? Are these empty and fragmented scenarios a mirror of what has become of contemporary America? There is certainly some affection for their contents on the part of the artist, but it is somehow tainted with pessimism and the impossibility of sustainable human relations, with the dissolute and commercial distractions of America today. Whether this is the way it is, or, at least, the way it is perceived by Schneider is hard to assess. There is a bleak lassitude about so many of her characters. But then again the artist has so inured herself into this context over a long protracted period that the boundaries between the events and happenings photographed, and the personal life of Stefanie Schneider, have become similarly opaque. Is it the diagnosis of a condition, or just a recording of a phenomenon? Only the viewer can decide this question. For the status of Schneider’s certain sense of uncertainty is, perhaps, the only truth we may ever know.

1 Kerry Brougher (ed.), Art and Film Since 1945: Hall of Mirrors, ex. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, 1996) 2 Im Reich der Phantome: Fotographie des Unsichtbaren, ex. cat., Städtisches Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach/Kunsthalle Krems/FotomuseumWinterthur, (Ostfildern-Ruit, 1997) 3 Photoworks: When Pictures Vanish – Sigmar Polke, Museum of Contemporary Art (Zürich-Berlin-New York, 1995) 4 Slavoj Žižek, The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, Seattle, Occasional Papers, no. 1, 2000. 5 Diane Arbus, eds. Doon Arbus, and Marvin Israel...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

The Party is over (Cyndi Lauper) - record cover shoot
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
The Party is over (Cyndi Lauper) from the 'Bring Ya to the Brink' record Album) - 2009 50x50cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print based on the Polaroid. Certificate and signature ...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Long Way Home, triptych
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Long Way Home (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 3 x 38x36cm, Edition of 30, Archival C-Prints, based on the 3 Polaroids Certificate and Signature label artist Inventory Nr. 250.51 ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

C Print, Color, Polaroid

The Tears we cried (Till Death do us Part) - Contemporary, Polaroid, Figurative
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
The Tears we cried (Till Death do us Part) - 2007, 20x20cm, Edition of 10. Digital C-Print print, based on a Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 8583. N...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

When would forever be a good time? part II (Till Death do us Part) - Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
When would forever be a good time? part II (Till Death do us Part) - 2007, 20x24cm, Edition of 10, digital C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, ...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Dogs USA, Black and White Photograph of Pets in a Sports Car
Located in New york, NY
Dogs, USA, Greenwich, CT is a 5" x 7" black and white photograph, stamped “vintage” by the Freed estate on verso (back) of gelatin silver press. Provenance: Freed archive. The photo...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin, Photographic Film, Photographic Paper

Blind Beggar - Broadway & 34th St., New York City
Located in Saint Louis, MO
S. Vincent Dillard Blind Beggar - Broadway & 34th St., New York City, 1992 Gelatin silver print 11 x 14 inches (27.9 x 35.6 cm)
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

The Diva (Beachshoot) - Polaroid, Vintage, analog, Contemporary
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
The Diva (Beachshoot) - 2005 50x50cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid Certificate and Signature label, artist Inventory # 1461. Not mounted. Beachshoot St...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Radha Shooting II (Long Way Home) - Polaroid, Pop-art, Contemporary, analog
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Radha Shooting II (Long Way Home) - 1999 published in 'Stranger than Paradise' 128x126cm Sold out edition of 5, Artist proof 2/2, Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Metal

Radha and Max on Dirt Road (29 Palms, CA) - analog, Polaroid, Contemporary
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Radha and Max on Dirt Road (29 Palms, CA) diptych - 1999 Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 50x48cm each, 50x102cm together with gap. 2 Archival C-Prints, based on 2 Polaroids....
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Metal

Africa, Little Surma Boy, Tribal Child Ethiopia, Photography on Japanese Paper
Located in New york, NY
Little Surma Boy, 1996 by Jean-Michel (JM) Voge, is a contemporary color photograph of a child from the Surma tribe in the Omo Valley in Ethiopia, Africa. The photograph is printed...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Rag Paper, Digital, Archival Pigment, Digi...

Untitled (Cathy and Shannon) - Contemporary, 21st Century, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Untitled (Cathy and Shannon) - 2004 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory No. 490...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven
Located in New York, NY
This photograph of Clint Eastwood taken by Eddie Adams is offered by CLAMP in New York City.
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

C Print

The Decision (The Getaway) - The Last Picture Show - Polaroid, Contemporary
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
The Decision - The Getaway (The Last Picture Show) - 1999 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Artist Inventory #762. Signature label and Certificate. Not mounted. Stefanie Schneider's photographs evoke scintillating moments suspended between daydreams and waking reality. Each scene, captured in the southwestern United States, radiates a surreal enchantment. The artist's role appears minimal yet pivotal, providing the decisive impulse that sets the imagery into motion. The figures in her photographs remain as elusive as the motivations behind their actions, and the narratives woven through her sequences are tantalizingly open to interpretation. Atmospheric disturbances in Schneider's work emerge as the result of a deliberate narrative arrangement, compelling viewers to navigate between visual mementos and the gaps in memory they conjure. Yet, her artistry is no less purposeful in its engagement with medium. Despite the inherent unpredictability of expired Polaroid film, Schneider wields it with calculated intent. The photo-chemical self-developing process, altered by age and decay, transforms the initial exposure into something alien yet mesmerizing. This dysfunction is a cornerstone of MIND SCREEN, a multi-part work that explores the fragility of reality, authenticity, and comprehension. Schneider juxtaposes this brittleness with a magical realism steeped in chimeras, crafting dreamlike sequences that resist definitive narratives. She entrusts viewers with the responsibility of piecing together presumed storylines, refusing to offer a manual for interpretation. Instead, her work draws us into a realm where the unreal reigns—shimmering scenes that evoke the mirage of a road movie, a moment of violence, or a tragic self-sacrifice. Film genres are invoked and subverted in a single breath: Paris, Texas by Wim Wenders is reimagined through a rose-tinted lens, Thelma...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Radha Shooting II (Long Way Home) - 21st Century, Polaroid, Pop-art, Color
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Radha Shooting II (Stranger than Paradise) - 1999 38x36cm, Edition of 30, digital C-Print based on a Polaroid, Signature label and Certificate. Artist Inventory No 259.34. Not mo...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Stevie in Bathtub (29 Palms, CA)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Stevie in Bathub (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 58x56cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, printed on Fuji Crystal Archive, based on the Polar...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Tall Hat
Located in New York, NY
William Wegman is an American artist renowned for his iconic dog photographs featuring his Weimaraners, who he sees as "perfect fashion models", utilizing their elegant forms and abi...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Pigment

The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - Contemporary, Polaroid, Women
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
The Games we played (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 artist proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label, a...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

John Kelly (I'm Lost to the World)
Located in New York, NY
This unique hand-painted photograph by Mark Beard is offered by CLAMP in New York City.
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Paint, Silver Gelatin

Half Angels Half Demons - Zebra #26, Black and White Photography
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Mauricio Velez's photographs seeks to refine the viewer's sensitivity and perception of art and the human body, elevating these elements to an aesthetic realm that can inspire, distu...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Black and White, Archival Pigment

Sitting Lionesses, Serengeti – Nick Brandt, Lion, Lioness, Africa, Animals, Wild
Located in Zurich, CH
NICK BRANDT (*1966, England) Sitting Lionesses, Serengeti 2002 Platinum print Image 69.5 x 88 cm (27 3/8 x 34 5/8 in.) Sheet 76.5 x 99 cm (30 1/8 x 39 in.) Edition of 25; Ed. no. 16/25 Framed Nick Brandt is a contemporary English photographer. His work focuses on the disappearing natural world. Since 2001, he has photographed the changing African continent and established a style of portrait photography of animals...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Platinum

New York, Jazz City, Musicians, Black and White Photography on Street Music
Located in New york, NY
Drawn to street photography for her early work, Roberta Fineberg shot black-and-white film with a held-held 35mm camera in natural lighting in New York, Paris, and Moscow. Jazz City, New York, 1990 by Roberta Fineberg is a 10" x 8" black-and-white photograph of musicians...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Photographic Film, Silver Gelatin

Untitled (Till Death do us Part)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Untitled (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 50x50cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print print, based on the Polaroid, Certificate and Sig...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

New York Python, Coney Island, Brooklyn, Year of the Snake Photograph
Located in New york, NY
New York Python, Coney Island, 1991 by Roberta Fineberg is a 14” x 11” gelatin silver print - offered in 2025 to celebrate the Year of the Snake…. In the words of the artist: "I sho...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Photographic Film, Photographic Paper, Silver Gelatin

Helena Christensen, Marrakech
Located in München, BY
Edition of 20 Portrait of the young Supermodel Helena Christensen. Fashion and fine art embrace each other in the photography of Jacques Olivar (b...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Reflection (Suburbia) - Contemporary, Polaroid, Photography
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Reflection (Suburbia) - 2004 20x20cm, Edition of 10, Archival C-Print based on a Polaroid, Not mounted, Certificate and signature label. Artist Inventory No. 2765. This project...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Untitled (Beachshoot) - with Radha Mitchell, analog, Polaroid, Contemporary
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Untitled (Beachshoot) - 2005 128x125cm, Edition 4/5. Analog C-Print, hand-Printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, based on the Polaroid. Signature label and Certifi...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Rapture (29 Palms, CA) - Polaroid, Contemporary, Color
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Rapture (29 Palms, CA) - 2022 48x46cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival Print, based on the Polaroid. Artist inventory Number 218829. Signature label and Certificate...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid, Archival Paper

Waiting (Ensign Broderick record Shoot 'Blood Crush') - Bombay Beach, CA
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Waiting (Ensign Broderick record Shoot 'Blood Crush') - Bombay Beach, CA - 2019 40x40cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Signature lab...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Nothing to do with my will (The Princess and her Lover)
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Nothing to do with my Will (The Princess and her Lover) - 2007 part of the 29 Palms, CA project. Edition of 10, 20x24cm. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature labe...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

White Tank (My own Private Travel Diary) - analog
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
White Tank, Joshua Tree (My own Private Travel Diary) - 1999, 43x59cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the Polaroid. Cer...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Africa, Dandy, Surma Boy, Tribal Child Omo Valley Ethiopia, Portrait Photography
Located in New york, NY
Dandy, 1996 by Jean-Michel Voge is a portrait of a colorfully painted boy with a feathered headdress from the Surma Tribe in Ethiopia, Africa. The photograph is printed by the artist on handmade Awagami Japanese paper. Signed on verso (back of photograph), and In an edition of 5. Available: 2/5. Provenance: JM Voge Archive *** Artist's Bio: Jean-Michel (JM) Voge (b. 1949) is a fine art photographer, formerly editorial freelancer for magazines, such as Madame Figaro (1982-2010), Le Figaro Magazine, Point of View, Marie France, Town and Country, European Travel and LIFE, Fortune Magazine, and AD Spain. The French photographer published a critically-acclaimed monograph on portraits of Europeans, "Figures of Europe," which include portraits of influential Europeans through 1990. Among JM's personal projects, he photographed the Surma tribe in the Omo Valley...
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1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Rag Paper, Digital, Archival Pigment, Digi...

Primary Colors - Contemporary, Abstract, Landscape, USA, Polaroid, Flag
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Primary Colors (Stranger than Paradise) - 2001 Edition 1/5, 9 pieces, each 48x47cm, installed 159x156cm including 5 cm gap in between each piece. 9 Analog C-Prints, hand-printed by...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

The Kiss (Sidewinder) - mounted, analog - Polaroid, Contemporary, Color, photo
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
The Kiss (Sidewinder) - 2005 125x154cm, Edition 2/5, analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive paper, based on the original Polaroid. Signed on verso. Artist Inventory No. 3120.02. Mounted on Aluminum with matte UV-Protection. This piece ships in a crate. Schneider harnesses the unpredictable chemical mutations of expired Polaroid film, where bursts of color erupt across the surface, destabilizing the photograph's traditional allegiance to reality. These vivid distortions draw her characters into ethereal, trance-like dreamscapes. Like fleeting sequences from a vintage road movie, Schneider’s images shimmer with a transitory quality, dissolving before any definitive conclusions can be drawn. Their ephemeral essence is conveyed through subtle gestures and enigmatic motives. Refusing to yield to the constraints of reality, Schneider’s work keeps alive a delicate interplay of dream, desire, fact, and fiction, blurring the boundaries between them with poetic ambiguity. Stefanie Schneider’s work echoes the heart of American art, channeling the cinematic nostalgia of Ed Ruscha’s roadscapes, the stark sensuality of Georgia O’Keeffe’s deserts, and the haunting solitude of Edward Hopper...
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Early 2000s Outsider Art Portrait Photography

Materials

Metal

Memories of Love II (The Girl...) - including the book 'A Half Forgotten Dream'
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Memories of Love II (The Girl Behind the White Picket Fence), 2013 including Stefanie Schneider's new monograph "A Half Forgotten Dream" signed. 192 pages, hardcover, published by S...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Monica Bellucci, N°1, South of France
Located in München, BY
Edition of 10 Portrait of the young Monica Bellucci. Fashion and fine art embrace each other in the photography of Jacques Olivar (b. 1941), where th...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Untitled (Olancha) - Stranger than Paradise - analog C-Print based on a Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Untitled (Olancha) - 2006, 38x37cm. Edition of 5, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. Artist...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Heath Ledger, Casanova, Venice 2004, Contemporary, Celebrity, Photography
Located in München, BY
Edition 10 Also available in 40 x 50 cm / 16 x 20 inch, Edition 25 Black and white portrait of actor Heath Ledger in young age. From personality portra...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

My Girl (Till Death do us Part) Contemporary, Woman, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
My Girl (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #92...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Parchment Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Sting - Signed Limited Edition Print (1992)
Located in London, GB
Sting - Signed Limited Edition Print Album Cover Shoot December 6 1992 Wiltshire Sting on a Horse (photo Kevin Westenberg) NB All prints are signed and numbered by the artist. ...
Category

Early 2000s Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

Black and White, Archival Pigment

Hillview Motel (Stranger than Paradise) - analog, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Hillview Motel (Stranger than Paradise) - triptych, 2003 Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. 20x66cm installed, 20x20cm each. 3 archival C-Prints, based on the 3 original Polar...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Robert Flexing, Brooklyn
Located in New York, NY
Robert Flexing, Brooklyn (2003) by artist Slava Mogutin, featured in "The Queer Show, Part I" at Hal Bromm Gallery
Category

Early 2000s Portrait Photography

Materials

C Print

Mesurage
Located in Denton, TX
Mesurage, 1994 Toned gelatin silver print 18 x 12 in. Signed, titled, and dated in pencil on print verso. From the series "El cocinero, el ladron, su mujer, y su amante" (The cook, t...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

On The Floor
Located in Austin, TX
From a stunning collection of contemporary nudes from celebrated photographer, Markus Klinko, featuring amongst others, Dita Von Teese, Stoya and Aubrey O’Day This print is availabl...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

C Print

Chelsea Hotel Elevator
Located in Austin, TX
Stunning museum quality fine art print of Chrissy Teigen by photographer Markus Klinko from a collection of contemporary nudes by the celebrated photographer, featuring amongst other...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

C Print

Kate Moss At 16 - signed limited edition print
Located in London, GB
An Unknown Kate Moss At 16 by Jake Chessum 1990 limited edition edition size 20 only this size printed 2024 Archival pigment print numbered and signed by the artist unframed ships securely from London England Framing options available Jake Chessum British-born, New York-based photographer Jake Chessum’s portfolio includes Amy Winehouse, Robbie Williams, David Bowie, Jay Z, Snoop Dogg, Coldplay, The Beastie Boys, Beck and beyond. Jake grew...
Category

1990s Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

My Girl (Till Death do us Part) Contemporary, Woman, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
My Girl (Till Death do us Part) - 2005 48x46cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs, Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Certificate and Signature label. Artist Inventory #92...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Polaroid, Color, C Print, Parchment Paper

Elton John, Contemporary, Celebrity, Photography, Portrait
Located in München, BY
Combined Edition 25 Also available in 50 x 60 cm/ 20 x 24 inch and as combined Edition 10 in 76 x 101 cm / 30 x 40 inch 101 x 127 cm / 40 x 50 inch Portrait of British singer and s...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Portrait Photography for Sale on 1stDibs

Portrait photography can be a powerful part of your wall decor. Find a provocative and compelling portrait that speaks to you and you might find that the photograph will speak to your guests too.

Prior to the development of photography, which eventually replaced portrait paintings as a quicker and more efficient way of capturing a person’s essence, the subject of a portrait had to sit for hours until the painter had finished. In 1839, chemist and Philadelphia-based photographer Robert Cornelius didn’t have to wait very long for his portrait. In a matter of minutes, he captured what many believe to be the first portrait photograph. This shot was also the first self-portrait (or what we now call a “selfie”), and fine photography quickly became an art form.

Landscape photography, nude photography and portrait photography are very popular in today's modern interiors. A portrait can reveal a lot about the person in it. It can also add a narrative touch to your decor. You’ll often find that photographs of loved ones work well as decorative touches. A portrait of a family member or dear friend can help turn a house into a home, warming any space by evoking fond memories.

While family portraits can stir emotion, portraits of celebrities and important historical figures can also add a rich dynamic to your space. Portraits of famous musicians or intriguing actors hung in your dining room or home bar shot by Gered Mankowitz or Annie Leibovitz might inspire deep conversation over meals or drinks. Douglas Kirkland is also famous for his celebrity portraits. His photojournalism made him much sought after by Hollywood studios to document the filming of movies. In Kirkland’s powerful depiction of Hollywood stars, he excellently captures the glamour of their lives.

Other artists like Elliott Erwitt stand out by turning portraiture into a playful art form. Before graduating from high school in Hollywood, Erwitt had already begun to teach himself to take pictures, inspired by the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson. In image after image, Erwitt captured what photographers call “the moment” with rapier wit and penetrating humanity.

Portrait photography can be incredibly expressive, setting the tone and mood for a room. And there are different ways of incorporating portrait photography into your interior decor. If you’re thinking about adding color photography to a bedroom or living room, the colors of the portraits can become part of the room’s palette, while portraits shot in black and white won’t disrupt an existing color scheme.

On 1stDibs, find a vast selection of portrait photography from different eras, including 1950s portraits, 1960s portrait photography and more.

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