Sugimoto rekindles the dialogue between painting and the medium of mechanical reproduction. Sugimoto isolated wax figures from staged vignettes in waxworks museums, posed them in three-quarter-length view, and illuminated them to create haunting Rembrandt-esque portraits of historical figures, such as Henry VIII, Napoleon Bonaparte, Fidel Castro, and Princess Diana. His painterly renditions, lush with detail, recall the various paintings from which the wax figures were originally drawn. Through layers of reproduction—from subject to painting to wax statue to photograph—these images most consciously convey the collapsing of time and the retelling of history. taken from the Guggenheim here
Arthur Wellsley, Duke of Wellington, 1999. Gelatin silver print, edition 1/5, 58 3/4 x 47 inches (149.2 x 119.4 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Commissioned by Deutsche Bank AG in consultation with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin 2005.104. © Hiroshi Sugimoto
the Duke of Wellington by Robert Home
the WaxWorks at Tussuad's in LONDON
from picasa here
Napoleon Bonaparte, 1999. Gelatin silver print, edition 1/5, 58 3/4 x 47 inches (149.2 x 119.4 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Commissioned by Deutsche Bank AG in consultation with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin 2005.114. © Hiroshi Sugimoto
Napoleon by David
The artist's believes photography is a time machine, preserving and picturing memory and time.
JANE SEYMOUR
the Holbein portrait l, r at Madame Tussuad's in London
Henry VIII, 1999. Gelatin silver print, edition 1/5, 58 3/4 x 47 inches (149.2 x 119.4 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Commissioned by Deutsche Bank AG in consultation with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin 2005.113. © Hiroshi Sugimoto
...putting the Light of the Holbein portraits of Henry and his six wives on the photographs of the Madame Tussuad figures enabled Sugimoto to create a portrait of the period.
Anne of Cleves, 1999. Gelatin silver print, edition 1/5, 58 3/4 x 47 inches (149.2 x 119.4 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Commissioned by Deutsche Bank AG in consultation with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin 2005.105. © Hiroshi Sugimoto
ANNE of CLEVES
the Holbein portrait at left
the 6 Wives of Henry the VIII by Sugimoto from historiful here
Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr.
Sugimoto's ELIZABETH in the home of designer Robert Couturier
& where would we be without Wilde
Oscar Wilde, 1999. Gelatin silver print, edition 1/5, 58 3/4 x 47 inches (149.2 x 119.4 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Commissioned by Deutsche Bank AG in consultation with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin 2005.89. © Hiroshi Sugimoto
.
