David Levinthal

DAVID LEVINTHAL (San Francisco, California, 1949).
“Painted Masks. Blackface,” 2007.
Artist’s book featuring an unpublished text by Antonio Muñoz Molina and six photographs by David Levinthal. Bilingual edition in Spanish and English.
Text screen-printed on 250 g BFK Rives paper at Taller Vallirana, Barcelona. Photographs digitally printed by Greenberg Editions, New York, on Premier Smooth Fine Art paper.
Copy 19/35. Total edition of 39 copies: 35 numbered from 1 to 35, 3 H.C., and one copy reserved for the National Library, numbered B.N.
Photographs signed, dated, and numbered by David Levinthal. Statement of authenticity signed by David Levinthal and Antonio Muñoz Molina.
Ediciones Raíña Lupa. Printing completed in Barcelona on September 25, 2007.
Presented in a black wooden box.
Suggested retail price: 5,700 €.
Measurements: 41 x 30 cm (book); 44 x 33 x 5 cm (box).

Featuring photographs from *Blackface* (1995–1998), one of David Levinthal’s seminal series, represented in collections such as the Whitney Museum, LACMA, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, “Painted Masks” is a meticulously crafted bibliophile edition limited to just 39 copies. The volume brings together six photographs from the series with a previously unpublished text by Antonio Muñoz Molina, establishing a dialogue between image and text around the historical construction of racial stereotypes. The edition was also featured at Art Madrid 2008 and in the Generalitat de Catalunya’s program dedicated to contemporary illustrated books.

Since the 1970s, Levinthal has used toys, figurines, and objects from popular culture to analyze how images construct memory and collective imaginaries. In *Blackface*, created between 1995 and 1998, he applies this strategy to objects and representations linked to the racist tradition of blackface, isolating them photographically to highlight the persistence and cultural significance of these archetypes. The limited print run—six signed and numbered photographs—and the literary collaboration with Muñoz Molina reinforce the collectible nature of this edition.

David Levinthal studied at Stanford and earned an MFA from Yale. Among other honors, he has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship; in 2018, the George Eastman Museum dedicated the retrospective *War, Myth, Desire* to him, the largest exhibition of his work organized to date. The institution currently holds more than 4,000 of the artist’s photographs, constituting the largest collection dedicated to his work. His work is also part of collections such as those at MoMA, the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, LACMA, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.