Jean-Michel Basquiat

Maker Plachy, Sylvia Hungarian-American, b. 1943

Date1986

MediumGelatin silver print

Dimensions14 in x 14 in

Credit LineGift of Susan Todd-Raque and David Raque

Object number2021:182

About the ArtistSylvia Plachy, born in Budapest, lives in New York. She has had one-person shows at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris in New York, the Queens Museum, and in galleries in Homer, Lubljana, Budapest, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Tokyo, New York, Manchester, Aries, Madrid, Perpingnon and Pingyau.

Formerly staff photographer for The Village Voice and contributing photographer at the New Yorker, her photographs have appeared in the New York Times, Fortune, Art Forum, Granta, Grand Street, New York Magazine and in many other magazines. She is a Guggenheim fellow and the recipient of Lucie Award. Her photographs are in private collections and also in the MoMA in NY, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the SF Museum and the High Museum.

Plachy has had six books published: SIGNS AND RELICS, 2000; RED LIGHT, 1996; UNGUIDED TOUR, 1990, winner of the Infinity Award for best publication; SELF PORTRAIT WITH COWS GOING HOME, 2004, winner of the Golden Light Award for best book; DE REOJO/OUT OF THE CORNER OF MY EYE, 2007; GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN, 2007.

Plachy was a legacy photographer at the Look3 Festival in the summer of 2009 in Charlottesville.

On February 6, 2010, Sylvia Plachy was given the Dr. Erich Salomon award by the German Society for Photography (DGPh). This prestigious prize is given for "lifetime achievement" in photojournalism.