Richard Misrach
Playboy #38

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Artist Richard MisrachAmerican, born 1949

CultureAmerican

Titles

Playboy #38
from Desert Canto XI: The Playboys

Date1990–1991

PlaceUnited States

MediumChromogenic print

DimensionsImage: 23 1/8 × 18 5/16 in. (58.7 × 46.5 cm)
Sheet: 23 15/16 × 20 in. (60.8 × 50.8 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Photo Forum 2003, The Manfred Heiting Collection

Object number2002.1670

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Special Collections

Manfred Heiting Collection of Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionFor nearly four decades, Richard Misrach has photographed the American West, producing a series of poetic essays (“Cantos,” he calls them) that explore the relationship of man and nature. In 1990, near the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, he stumbled upon two bullet-riddled issues of Playboy that had been used by locals for a perverse, misogynistic round of target practice. As he turned the magazine pages, Misrach found, of course, that the violence aimed at the women on the cover in fact shot through all layers of American society found within, from pop celebrities to shampoo ads.
ProvenanceArtist; Robert Mann Gallery, New York.

Bought by Manfred Heiting from Robert Mann Gallery, New York, 4/22/1987.
Exhibition History"Photoforum 2003", at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, September 15 - December 1, 2003.

“History of Photography I: Selections from the Museum's Collection,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 1, 2014–February 22, 2015.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Inscribed in black, recto of sheet, lower left: "10/25 PLAYBOY #38"

Signed and dated in black, recto of sheet, lower right: "© Richard /Misrach 1990/1991"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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