Existing comment:
Untitled, from the series Wild West
1994 Polaroid Polacolor ER Land Film
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of an anonymous donor 2018.3.19
Levinthal began the Wild West series with the Polaroid SX-70 camera. The small-scale photos, on view in the adjacent gallery, won Levinthal an invitation to work on a larger scale with Polaroid's 20x24 camera. The subsequent success of the Wild West series brought his work to the attention of Absolut Vodka, which commissioned a photograph for their popular advertising campaign. During this process, Levinthal discovered a new method for making his backgrounds, which were previously spray paint on foam core. The technique, which Levinthal uses today, involves spray-painting translucent vellum sheets and illuminating them from behind |