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Skolnick, Arnold

American, b. 1938

BiographyArnold Skolnick is best known as the graphic designer behind the famous promotional poster for the 1969 Woodstock rock festival, in which a dove perches on the neck of a guitar against a red background. Skolnick was also a photographer, however, and in the early 1970s, he completed an extensive body of work that celebrates the sexual side of love. His sensual yet elegantly beautiful black-and-white images depict men and women entwined in the act, capturing the sexual dynamic with stylized grace and a feeling of vitality. Through his control of lighting and composition, Skolnick imbues the human figures with a sculptural quality, lending the images an abstract beauty that coexists with the specificity of the intimate moments.

A few of Skolnick's erotic photographs were exhibited in 1973, but for the better part of thirty years, he kept the negatives in storage. At the time he made them, the images would have been controversial, and in that particular social climate, possibly even grounds for allegations of obscenity. In 2008, eighty-five photographs from this body of work were finally published in a book, Love Song, by Quantuck Lane Press. Skolnick taught at the International Center for Photography, New York University, and Columbia University School of the Arts, all in New York City.