David Wojnarowicz was an author, poet, photographer, musician, filmmaker and painter whose work as an AIDS activist influenced his visionary and revolutionary art. Personal experiences of disenfranchisement and the stories of people he met living on the margins of society informed the narratives of his work, with identity, sexuality and a bristling against political structures all contributing to its visceral edge. Wojnarowicz unapologetically channeled his anger at the injustices exacted on minorities and alternative lifestyles through repressive governments and financial systems into his paintings, prints, collages and photography.
Wojnarowicz was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, in 1954. He had a tumultuous childhood, dropping out of high school and living on the streets by the time he was 16. He spent much of his youth hitchhiking, spending time in San Francisco and then Paris.
Wojnarowicz moved to New York’s East Village in 1978, where he began exhibiting his art, which he frequently made from found materials. He became a central figure in the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, refusing to censor his work, which often forthrightly reflected his queer sexuality and his fury at the conservative establishment. Particularly after the death of his lover Peter Hujar in 1987, he concentrated on the government’s political inaction during the AIDS crisis. As he wrote in his 1991 memoir, Close to the Knives, “To make the private into something public is an action that has terrific repercussions.”
Wojnarowicz died in 1992 from complications due to AIDS. His art is in major collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate Modern and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, which has championed LGBTQ+ artists such as Wojnarowicz for decades. In 2018, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York held a retrospective of his work.
Find David Wojnarowicz mixed media works, paintings, photography and other art on 1stDibs.
Price Upon Request
Untitled (Arthur Rimbaud in Paris)
By David Wojnarowicz
Located in New York, NY
David Wojnarowicz Untitled (Arthur Rimbaud in Paris) 1980/2023 Estate stamped, verso Archival pigment print (Edition of 100) 6.16 x 4.125 inches, image 10 x 8 inches, sheet Con...
Archival Pigment
Price Upon Request
Untitled (Buffaloes), Black and White Photograph by David Wojnarowicz
By David Wojnarowicz
Located in New York, NY
Untitled (Buffaloes), Photograph by David Wojnarowicz 1988/1994 Estate stamp in black ink, vesro Also initialed “TWR” and numbered in black ink, vesro Platinum print (Edition of 10...
Platinum
Price Upon Request
Rimbaud in New York
By David Wojnarowicz
Located in New York, NY
Gelatin silver print (Edition of 6) Estate stamped in black ink, verso Also initialed "TWR" and numbered in pencil, verso This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York...
Silver Gelatin
Emma in Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, April 1984
By Jonathan Becker
Located in New York, NY
Emma in Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, 1984 Pão de Açucar, (Sugarloaf Mountain), Rio’s defining landmark looms in the background. Photographed by Jonathan Becker Contemporary 14" x 14.5...
Platinum
$12,000
H 14 in W 14 in
Martha Graham with Madonna & Calvin Klein at New York City Center, October 1990
By Jonathan Becker
Located in New York, NY
Martha Graham at New York City Center after her final onstage bow - backstage with Madonna and Calvin Klein, October 1990 "Martha was my godmother, and she was posing." - JB Photog...
Platinum
Jean-Paul Goude & Toukie Smith in NYC Subway, 1976
By Jonathan Becker
Located in New York, NY
Jean-Paul Goude & Toukie Smith in NYC Subway, 1976 Photographed by Jonathan Becker Contemporary 14" x 14.5" Platinum/Palladium Print Edition Nº 1 of 6 Ce...
Platinum
$12,000
H 14 in W 14 in
Julian Schnabel at his Outdoor Studio, Montauk, New York, 13 August 2001
By Jonathan Becker
Located in New York, NY
Julian Schnabel at his Outdoor Studio, Montauk, New York, 13 August 2001 Schnabel's magnificent open-air studio benefits fully from the special light of Long Island's East End as oi...
Platinum
Bristlecone Pine
By Beth Moon
Located in Sante Fe, NM
All photographs are platinum/palladium prints. These metals are hand coated on 100% rag cotton water color paper with natural deckled edges and contact printed. Since platinum, like ...
Photographic Paper, Platinum
Odin's Cove #16
By Beth Moon
Located in Sante Fe, NM
From the Odin's Cove series – Odin’s Cove is about a sense of place. It is a celebration of the beauty of nature in a visually stimulating landscape where untamed bramble and ivy su...
Platinum
Shebehon Forest
By Beth Moon
Located in Sante Fe, NM
All photographs are platinum/palladium prints. These metals are hand coated on 100% rag cotton water color paper with natural deckled edges and contact printed. Since platinum, like ...
Photographic Paper, Platinum
$12,500
H 14.5 in W 14 in
Elaine's Kitchen - Andy Warhol and Elaine, New York, 1976
By Jonathan Becker
Located in New York, NY
Elaine's Kitchen - Andy Warhol and Elaine, New York, 1976 Photographed by Jonathan Becker Contemporary 14" x 14.5" Platinum & Palladium Print Edition Nº 1 of 3 Certificate of Origin Signed and Titled by the Photographer in Edition and Emboss-stamped in the Margin/Recto Printing & Edition Notes along with Copyright Stamp and Applicable Providence on Verso Printed by hand at the photographer's studio in the traditional Platinum & Palladium process on 100% cotton rag paper. Platinum & Palladium prints are known for their unrivaled longevity and unparalleled subtlety. Print cost includes wrapping/packing/crating for shipment in double-tubing. ______ Jonathan Becker (Steven Kasher Gallery bio by Mark Rozzo) Literate flair, acute visual intuition, love of mischief and spontaneity, and global wanderlust: These are among the hallmarks of the work of Jonathan Becker, whose photography spans four decades and includes iconic portraits (often for Vanity Fair) of a multiplicity of subjects, including Robert Mapplethorpe, Martha Graham, Madonna, Elia Kazan, Prince Charles, Eudora Welty, André Leon Talley, Ai Weiwei, Diana Vreeland and Jack Kevorkian. Becker - whose work was first published in Andy Warhol’s Interview in 1973 - was born in 1954 and raised in New York City. In the mid-1970s, he moved for a year to Paris, where he was mentored by his hero, Brassaï. Upon return to New York, Becker drove a cab, toting his camera and parking to complete magazine assignments. A 1981 exhibition of Becker’s work at New York’s Rentschler Gallery included a series of arresting images of patrons taken inside the kitchen at Elaine’s, the storied hangout on New York’s Upper East Side. This exhibition, curated by art director Bea Feitler brought Becker to the attention of Frank Zachary, editor-in-chief of Town & Country. Zachary invited Becker to work for the magazine, where the young photographer further developed his passion for journalistic portraiture alongside Slim Aarons, who, after Brassaï, became Becker’s guiding light. Becker was then enlisted by Bea Feitler to contribute portraits to the prototype of Vanity Fair’s 1983 re-launch. His participation led to a highly prolific association with the magazine as Contributing Photographer, continuing to this day. Becker has also contributed portraits and reportage to The New Yorker, Vogue, W, The Paris Review, amongst truly most major publications. In complement to his editorial work, Becker has accepted a limited number of private and family portrait commissions each year, some accompanied by privately published books, and in the course of his three-years-long project for the Rockefeller Foundation, Becker documented its vast array of philanthropic grant recipients on four continents abroad. Six trade books comprised entirely of Becker’s photographs have been published including Bright Young Things...
Platinum
Devil's Pulpit
By Beth Moon
Located in Sante Fe, NM
All photographs are platinum/palladium prints. These metals are hand coated on 100% rag cotton water color paper with natural deckled edges and contact printed. Since platinum, like ...
Photographic Paper, Platinum
Silver Laced Polish
By Beth Moon
Located in Sante Fe, NM
All photographs are platinum/palladium prints. These metals are hand coated on 100% rag cotton water color paper with natural deckled edges and contact printed. Since platinum, like ...
Platinum
Minorca Black Hen
By Beth Moon
Located in Sante Fe, NM
All photographs are platinum/palladium prints. These metals are hand coated on 100% rag cotton water color paper with natural deckled edges and contact printed. Since platinum, like ...
Platinum
Blue Rumpless Araucana
By Beth Moon
Located in Sante Fe, NM
All photographs are platinum/palladium prints. These metals are hand coated on 100% rag cotton water color paper with natural deckled edges and contact printed. Since platinum, like ...
Platinum