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Frame Included
"Figure 3" (2022) by Matthew Alfonso Durante, Mixed Media Female Nude Portrait
Located in Denver, CO
"Figure 3" (2022) by Matthew Alfonso Durante is an original handmade mixed media painting that depicts a nude female model in front of a greyscale landscape. This piece measures 10 x...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Nude Paintings

Materials

Clay, Acrylic, Panel, Graphite

Marbella Club (1976) Limited Estate Stamped - Giant
Located in London, GB
Marbella Club (1976) Limited Estate Stamped - Giant (Photo by Slim Aarons) A guest takes a break from the sun at the Marbella Club, Marbella, Spain, 1976. Additional Informatio...
Category

1970s Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

Color, Archival Pigment

Joan Crawford - Silver Gelatin Fibre Print
Located in London, GB
Joan Crawford - Silver Gelatin Fibre Print - Oversized (Photo by Pictorial Press / Alamy Archives) Joan Crawford (1905-1977) US film actress. Additional Information: Unframed Pa...
Category

1930s Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

Black and White, Silver Gelatin

Elizabeth Taylor On Set Of Giant - Oversize Limited Print
Located in London, GB
Elizabeth Taylor with Sunglasses for "Giant" 1955 by Frank Worth This iconic and elegant portrait captured by celebrity photographer Frank Worth features actress Elizabeth Taylor o...
Category

1950s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Bette Davis Smoking
Located in Austin, TX
Stunning black and white image of Bette Davis in a silk gown, reclining while smoking a cigarette. Bette Davis was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and...
Category

1930s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Digital, Archival Pigment

Don't Give up on Us Baby (Till Death do us Part) - Contemporary, Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Don't Give up on Us Baby (Till Death do us Part) - 2007 20x24cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid. Certificate and Signature...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

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

Muhammad Ali as Saint Sebastian, Color Photography, Fine Art Print
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Muhammad Ali as Saint Sebastian, 1967 48 x 84.5 in. (121 x 214 cm) Chromogenic Print Edition of 3 Exclusive to TASCHEN The photographer Carl Fischer (b. 1924), photographer an...
Category

20th Century Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Frida Kahlo in the Blue House, Coyoacán, Mexico. 1943 Color Portrait
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Matiz managed to create intimate portraits, in which Frida seemed happy to surrender to her lens. The result was dynamic portraits of Khalo, a wonderful example of both the photograp...
Category

1940s Modern Color Photography

Materials

Color

New York, Policeman with Puppet and Gun, Black and White Limited Ed Photography
Located in New york, NY
Policeman with Puppet and Gun, New York City, USA 1979 by Leonard Freed is a black and white limited edition photograph from Freed's Policework series. The photograph, 13" x 19" is an archival pigment print with the photographer's copyright stamp and estate signature by the photographer's widow, Brigitte Freed. The print is in an edition of 10. Available: 1/10, 10/10. Provenance: Freed Estate *** Artist’s Bio: Leonard Freed (1929-2006) was an American photographer from Brooklyn, New York. His "Black in White America" series made him known as a documentarian, a social documentary photographer. Freed worked as a freelance photographer from 1961 onwards and as a Magnum photographer Freed traveled widely abroad and, in the US, photographing African Americans (1964-65), events in Israel (1967-68, 1973), and the New York City police department (1972-79). Freed's coverage of the American civil rights...
Category

1970s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Photographic Film, Archival Paper, Digital, Archival Pigme...

Natalie Wood and Guinea Pig
Located in Austin, TX
Black and white candid capture of actress Natalie Wood smiling while holding a pet guinea pig. Natalie Wood Wood started acting at age four and was given a co-starring role at age e...
Category

1960s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

Frank Sinatra "Selfie" in the Medicine Cabinet
Located in Chicago, IL
An early Self Portrait of Frank Sinatra circa late 1930s. At home in Hoboken, NJ. One of the earliest photos found in the family archive and perhaps, lik...
Category

1930s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Rag Paper, Giclée

Bath Time Story
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Bath Time Story - 2017, Edition of 7 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the original Polaroid, not mounted. Signature label and certificate. Artist inventory PL201...
Category

2010s Contemporary Nude Photography

Materials

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

Brigitte Bardot in Beret
Located in Austin, TX
Vintage 1968 capture of Brigitte Bardot in a beret. Brigitte Bardot is a French former actress, singer, and model as well as an animal rights activist. Famous for portraying charact...
Category

1960s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

Francoise Hardy (1969) - Silver Gelatin Fibre Print
Located in London, GB
Francoise Hardy (1969) - Silver Gelatin Fibre Print (Photo by Reg Lancaster/Express/Getty Images) 1969: French singer, Francoise Hardy sitting on a m...
Category

1960s Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

Black and White, Silver Gelatin

Willie Nelson by Ebet Roberts
Located in Austin, TX
Willie Nelson at The Palladium in NYC on December 11, 1980 by Ebet Roberts. Signed limited edition, hand printed silver gelatin print. Ebet Roberts began her career in 1977 when sh...
Category

Late 20th Century Photorealist Portrait Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Deborah Kerr - Vintage Autographed Photograph - Mid-20th Century
Located in Roma, IT
Deborah Kerr - Vintage Autographed Photograph  is a vintage photo, realized in the mid-20th century. Signature and dedication by the actress Deborah Kerr. "Al "Lancio" con i miei mi...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper

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 Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Photographic Film, Silver Gelatin

New York Debutante, Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This mid-1950s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features a New York debutante having her headpiece pinned. This is an estate stamped and hand numbe...
Category

1950s American Realist Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White, Lambda

White Horses Running Beneath a Waterfall in Iceland, Color Photography, Vertical
Located in US
"Through the Falls" The famous horses of Iceland pay no attention to the extreme elements of their homeland most would find daunting - including some of the mightiest waterfalls on ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Portrait of a Warrior Wearing Traditional Dress, Vertical
Located in US
"Warrior Embellished" A young Samburu man wears the traditional adornment of his status as warrior in this detailed and timeless award-winning portrait. In this print series titl...
Category

2010s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Afghan Girl - Color Photograph, National Geographic, Portrait, Documentary
Located in Denton, TX
One of Steve McCurry's most iconic images, this portrait features a young Afghan girl with piercing green eyes wearing a red head scarf. Afghan Girl by Steve McCurry is a 24 x 20 i...
Category

1980s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Digital

Pride - Jennifer Lopez and Now - Bruno Mars, Diptych. From the Blue series
Located in Miami Beach, FL
This artwork was created by the artistic duo Hunter & Gatti (2010–2023). These works are part of the archive managed and exhibited by Cristian Hunter. The artist's technique consists...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Photographic Paper, Black and White, Archival Pigment, Mixed Media

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 Abstract Photography

Materials

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

Kate Moss At 16
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 ...
Category

1990s Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

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 Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Warhol Superstar Twins Jay and Jed Johnson photographed for After Dark Magazine
Located in Senoia, GA
11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph of twin brothers Jay and Jed Johnson photographed for 'After Dark' magazine on June 8, 1970. Comes dire...
Category

1970s Pop Art Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Cricket in Antigua (1960) - Limited Estate Stamped
Located in London, GB
Cricket in Antigua (1960) - Limited Estate Stamped (Photo By Slim Aarons) Cricketers on the field during a match between the Leeward Islands and the MCC, Antigua, West Indies, ...
Category

1960s Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

Color, Archival Pigment

Norman Parkinson 'Jane Birkin'
Located in New York, NY
Norman Parkinson Jane Birkin 1969 (printed later) Estate stamped and numbered edition of 21 English-French actress, singer, songwriter, and model Jane Birkin photographed wearing a ...
Category

1960s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Slim Aarons 'A Relaxing Read (Cheryl Tiegs and Peter Beard)'
Located in New York, NY
Slim Aarons A Relaxing Read, 1982 Chromogenic Lambda print Estate stamped and hand numbered edition of 150 with certificate of authenticity. Cheryl Tiegs...
Category

1970s Modern Color Photography

Materials

Lambda

Mick and Bianca in Paris
By Michael Norcia
Located in Austin, TX
Mick Jagger and Bianca Perez posed candid in doorway during a visit to Paris, September 1971. Mick Jagger is an English singer, songwriter, actor, and film producer who has achiev...
Category

1970s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Digital, Archival Pigment

Dahlia 5, 2013 - Contemporary Limited Edition Archival Inkjet Print
Located in Brighton, GB
Dahlia 5 is a rich and luxurious Archival Inkjet Print by contemporary photographer Philip Gatward. It is available in this size of 32" x 38" from a Limited Edition of 10. Gatwar...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Inkjet, Color

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 Landscape Photography

Materials

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

Marilyn Monroe Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Screen Test Vintage Press Print
Located in Austin, TX
Black and white promo photo of Marilyn Monroe posed in a a cloak for her role in "Monkey BusinessGentlemen Prefer Blondes", circa 1953. -- One-of-a-kind original vintage press print...
Category

1950s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

The Nine Lives of Cindy, porcelain plate & official COA in box Lt Edition of 100
Located in New York, NY
Cindy Sherman The Nine Lives of Cindy, 2019 Printed Bone Porcelain 12 1/2 in diameter Limited Edition of 100 Plate signed verso and also accompanied by plate signed documentation card/official Certificate of Authenticity In original box Produced exclusively for the National Portrait Gallery in the United Kingdom on the occasion of the 2019 Cindy Sherman exhibition which also traveled to the Vancouver Art Gallery. Acquired directly from the National Portrait Gallery before it sold out. Cindy Sherman Biography: Born in 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Cindy Sherman lives and works in New York NY. Her ground-breaking photographs have interrogated themes around representation and identity in contemporary media for over four decades. Coming to prominence in the late 1970s with the Pictures Generation group alongside artists such as Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince and Louise Lawler, Sherman studied art at Buffalo State College in 1972 where she turned her attention to photography. In 1977, shortly after moving to New York, Sherman began her critically acclaimed Untitled Film Stills. A suite of 69 black and white portraits, Untitled Film Stills sees Sherman impersonate a myriad of stereotypical female characters and caricatures inspired by Hollywood pictures, film noir, and B movies. Using a range of costumes, props and backdrops to manipulate her own appearance and to create photographs resembling promotional film images, the series explores the tension between artifice and identity in consumer culture which has preoccupied the artist’s practice ever since. Sherman continued to channel and reconstruct familiar personas known to the collective psyche, often in unsettling ways. In 1981, the artist created her Centerfolds, a series of photographic double spreads inspired by men’s erotic magazines...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Ceramic, Porcelain, Paper, Mixed Media, Screen

The Beatles 1963
Located in Austin, TX
The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr at the President Hotel, Russell Square, London, 12 September 1963 by Norman Pa...
Category

Late 20th Century Photorealist Portrait Photography

Materials

C Print

Terry O'Neill, Faye Dunaway by the Pool
Located in New York, NY
Faye Dunaway Oscar Outtake (Stare) Los Angeles 1977 (printed later C-print 40 x 40 inches Signature stamped and numbered edition of 50 with certificate of authenticity from the Terr...
Category

1990s Modern Color Photography

Materials

C Print

Audrey Hepburn Smiling with Dog
Located in Austin, TX
Unique black and white capture of actress Audrey Hepburn smiling while holding a pet Yorkie. Audrey Hepburn was a British actress. Hepburn had a successful career in Hollywood and w...
Category

1960s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

Rita Hayworth Posed with Dog
Located in Austin, TX
Black and white studio capture of Rita Hayworth posed smiling while petting a dog, circa 1939. Rita Hayworth was an American actress, dancer, and pin-up girl. She achieved fame in t...
Category

1930s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X
Located in Austin, TX
Black and white candid capture of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., candid and smiling. On March 26, 1964, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. met for the first and only time i...
Category

1960s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

Marlene Dietrich in Fur
Located in Austin, TX
Black and white studio capture of Marlene Dietrich posed in a fur coat. In 1920s Berlin, Dietrich performed on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola Lola in Josef v...
Category

1940s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

Elvis Presley Graceland
Located in Austin, TX
Retro 1957 photograph depicting music's new sensation Elvis Presley posing for a photo outside of his new Memphis, Tennessee home, Graceland. This early portrayal was captured on Apr...
Category

1950s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

Marilyn In Grand Central Station (1955) Silver Gelatin Fibre Print
Located in London, GB
Marilyn In Grand Central Station (1955) Silver Gelatin Fibre Print (Photo by Ed Feingersh/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) NEW YORK - MARCH 24: Actress Marilyn Monroe takes the ...
Category

1950s Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

Black and White, Silver Gelatin

Louis Armstrong, Berlin 1965
Located in Cologne, DE
This black-and-white photo captures jazz legend Louis Armstrong playing his trumpet during a performance in Berlin in 1965. Armstrong, with intense focus, holds the trumpet close to ...
Category

1960s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Black and White

Martin & Sinatra, 1961 - Portrait of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra from Getty
Located in Brighton, GB
Please bear in mind that all prints are produced to order. Lead times are expected between 15-20 days. A gorgeous black and white fibre print, available in other sizes. Taken from...
Category

20th Century Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Black and White

Inga Lindgren and Poodles - Portrait of Model and Poodles in Springtime New York
Located in Brighton, GB
Inga Lindgren and Poodles - Portrait of Model and Poodles in Springtime New York by Slim Aarons 16 x 20" print. Limited Edition Estate Stamped Print. Ed...
Category

20th Century American Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Digital, Black and White

Cassius Clay vs. Floyd Patterson
Located in Austin, TX
Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) was an American professional boxer, activist, and philanthropist. He is widely regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of th...
Category

1960s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

Skiing Waiters, 1962 - Skiing on Snowy Slope with Pheasant and Champagne
Located in Brighton, GB
Skiing Waiters, 1962 - Skiing on Snowy Slope with Pheasant and Champagne by Slim Aarons 16" x 16" print on 16" x 20" paper. Limited Edition Estate Stamped Print. Edition of 150. Pri...
Category

20th Century American Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Color, C Print, Digital

Elke Sommer Sultry Portrait Vintage Press Print
Located in Austin, TX
Black and white capture of actress Elke Sommer posed in a sultry portrait, circa 1965. -- One-of-a-kind original vintage press print from the Celebrity Vault archives. Own a piece o...
Category

1960s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Andy Warhol, Los Angeles, 21st Century, Contemporary, Celebrity, Photography
Located in München, BY
Edition 10 Also available in 40 x 50 cm / 16 x 20 inch, Edition 25 Signed on a label and a certificate of authenticity Black and white portrait of artist Andy Warhol with sunglasses. From personality portraits and advertising campaigns to magazine layouts and fine art work, Greg Gorman has developed a unique style in his profession. His distinctive use of light in his black and white portraits is one of the identifying aspects of a Gorman photograph. Gorman’s strength has been photographing motion picture and music personalities. His work has been used in film advertising and publicity campaigns as well as album and CD covers. Some of the motion picture celebrities that he has photographed include Ben Affleck, Lauren Bacall, Alec Baldwin, Antonio Banderas, Kim Basinger, Marlon Brando, Pierce Brosnan, Kevin Costner, Bette Davis, Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Andy Garcia, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Dustin Hoffman, Sophia Loren, Al Pacino, Barbra Streisand, Kiera Knightley, Clive Owen, Jennifer Lopez and John Travolta. In the music field, Mr. Gorman has worked with Elton John, Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Morrissey, John Mayer, Bette Midler, Grace Jones and Frank Zappa to name a few. A partial list of the films that he has generated graphics and publicity for include “The Hurt Locker”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “King Arthur”, “Tootsie”, “The Big Chill”, “Bull Durham” and the Key Art Award winner “Pearl Harbor”. Mr. Gorman has lectured and conducted seminars throughout the world including Digital Photographic Workshops at his studio in Mendocino, California. A project for Disney in conjunction with the Travel Association of America, took him on a 45-day shoot across the United States shooting subjects from all 50 states...
Category

1980s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Grace Jones Holding Pistol
Located in Austin, TX
Black and white glamour studio portrait of Grace Jones holding a pistol for her role in Bond film "A View to a Kill", circa 1985. Grace Jones is a Jamaican singer, songwriter, model...
Category

1980s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

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 Photography

Materials

C Print

David Bowie Smoking Clown by Duffy
Located in Austin, TX
Museum quality fine art print of David Bowie smoking a cigarette in the Scary Monsters Clown costume from the official Duffy Archive. Taken from the original negatives, these offici...
Category

Late 20th Century Photorealist Portrait Photography

Materials

C Print

Isaac Hayes, LA, 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 American singer, song...
Category

1980s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Jean-Michel Basquiat
Located in New York, NY
Jean-Michel Basquiat 1987 (printed later) Archival pigment print 48 x 48 inches Signed and numbered edition of 40 William Coupon is an American photographer, born in New York City, ...
Category

1980s Modern Portrait Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Poolside Waiting, Palm Springs, Estate Edition, Portrait Photograph
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This 1970s portrait photograph, captured by society photographer Slim Aarons, features a waiter by the pool at Nelda Linsk's desert house in Palm Springs, January 1970. The house was...
Category

1970s Realist Portrait Photography

Materials

Lambda

Marilyn Monroe with Ben Lyon Vintage Press Print
Located in Austin, TX
Black and white capture of actress Marilyn Monroe smiling at an event with Ben Lyon. -- One-of-a-kind original vintage press print from the Celebrity Vault archives. Own a piece of ...
Category

1950s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Slim Aarons 'Joan Collins Relaxes'
Located in New York, NY
Film star Joan Collins relaxes with her pink poodle on her pink bed. Estate stamped and hand numbered edition of 150 with certificate of authenticity fro...
Category

1950s Realist Color Photography

Materials

Lambda

Debbie Harry, 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 American singer, son...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Portrait of a Young Woman Wearing Traditional Tribal Jewelry, Africa, Fashion
Located in US
"Mindisayo's Gaze" In this best-selling image, a young women in the Rendille tribe of Northern Kenya wears the unique jewelry and ornamentation of this culturally-rich region. The...
Category

2010s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Thelma Todd in Fur
Located in Austin, TX
Black and white closeup glamour portrait of classic film actress Thelma Todd posed in a fur coat and wide brimmed hat. Thelma Todd was an American actress and businesswoman who carried the nicknames "The Ice Cream Blonde" and "Hot Toddy". Appearing in about 120 feature films and shorts between 1926 and 1935, she is remembered for her comedic roles opposite ZaSu Pitts...
Category

1930s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Archival Pigment

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