By William Wegman
Located in NEW YORK, NY
William Wegman Mondo Bizarro, 2015 (William Wegman Dogs/William Wegman Weimaraners):
"When I first began to photograph my dog Man Ray in the early seventies, I was careful to steer clear of anything anthropomorphic or cute. I have an aversion to dogs dressed up to look like people. I dressed Man Ray up to look like an elephant, a frog, other kinds of dogs . . . That was okay. But working with my second dog, Fay Ray, and the vertically oriented 20x24 Polaroid camera led me to abandon that manifesto. Still, I would never photograph my dog in a hat or sunglasses. Okay, once or twice . . ." —William Wegman
Archival inkjet print.
Dimensions: 8 x 10 inches including borders (image size 7 x 9.4 inches).
Excellent overall condition
Affixed label on the reverse signed and numbered by Wegman: from an edition of 70 and 5 Artist’s Proofs.
Printed by Laumont Editions in New York. Published by Aperture Foundation New York.
Literature:
This image appears in Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Photograph by Jason Fulford, 2021.
William Wegman is an American artist best known for his portraits of his Weimaraner dogs. “My Weimaraners are perfect fashion models,” he said of his subjects. “Their elegant, slinky forms are covered in gray—and gray, everyone knows, goes with anything.” Born on December 2, 1943 in Holyoke, MA, Wegman graduated with a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston in 1965, and received an MFA in painting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign two years later. He began working with his dog, Man Ray, named after the famed Surrealist artist, in the 1970s by positioning the dog within in various humorous props and costumes. Wegman began to use a Polaroid 20 x 24 camera with Fay Ray—Man Ray’s successor—in 1986. Her litter would then feature heavily into Wegman’s staged photography and films throughout the 1990s. His videos and photos have appeared in a variety of films, advertisements, books, and television programs such as Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live. The artist currently lives and works between New York, NY and Rangeley, ME. His works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among others.
Related Categories:
William Wegman Dogs. Dog photograph...
Category
2010s Pop Art William Wegman Prints and Multiples
MaterialsArchival Pigment