Joel-Peter Witkin

Joel-Peter Witkin (b. 1939, Brooklyn, New York) is an American photographer whose meticulously staged black-and-white images explore mortality, spirituality, identity, and the human body. Drawing on religious iconography, classical painting, and mythology, he transforms photography through hand-altered negatives and prints. His work has been featured in more than 150 solo exhibitions, including a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, and is held in the collections of MoMA, the Getty, the National Gallery of Art, the Centre Pompidou, the V&A, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.