Soft Figure

1964

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

A quintessential Los Angeles artist of the radical 1960s, Robert Heinecken graduated in 1960 with a master’s degree in printmaking. Four years later, he founded the photography program at the University of California, Los　Angeles, where he taught for the next twenty-seven years. Ironically, he rarely used a camera to create his own images and instead appropriated pictures from magazines. This dreamy and erotic work from the beginning of his career effectively explores camera techniques often defined as "bad photography," such as incorrect exposure, shooting into the light, and motion blur. At first glance one might ask, is it a photograph documenting reality or a copy of a drawing? For Heinecken, this ambiguity is precisely where the beauty lies.

Artwork Details

Overview

Exhibition History

Title: Soft Figure
Artist: Robert Heinecken (American, 1931–2006)
Date: 1964
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image: 10 × 8 in. (25.4 × 20.3 cm)
Framed: 15 1/4 × 13 in. (38.7 × 33 cm)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Promised Gift of Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Curatorial Department: Photographs