Untitled #1

1988, printed 2020

Sunil Gupta

Associated Names
Sunil Gupta

Artist, Canadian, born India, 1953

This photograph shows two men standing outdoors with a cloudy blue sky overhead. They are positioned side by side, leaning against a stone wall. The man on the left has short, dark hair and light brown skin, and he is wearing a grey blazer over a light blue and white striped shirt and blue jeans with a patch showing a white horse. He is looking towards the right, to the man next to him. The man on the right has pale skin, short light brown hair, and a mustache, and he is wearing a beige zip-up jacket with his hand on the side of his head, resting against the stone wall behind him. He is looking towards us. Both men seem to be smiling slightly. In the background there appear to be the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben along the River Thames in London, with boats on the water. To the right is a vertical white stripe with text on it. Beyond that stripe, on the far right, appears to be part of a different black-and-white photograph that shows a mounted police officer and a crowd in an urban setting.

Media Options

This object’s media is not available for download. Contact us about image usage.

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    inkjet print

  • Credit Line

    Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund

  • Dimensions

    image: 60.96 × 91.44 cm (24 × 36 in.)
    sheet: 65.41 × 111.76 cm (25 3/4 × 44 in.)

  • Accession Number

    2022.23.1

  • Copyright

    © Sunil Gupta

More About this Artwork

In this black and white photograph, a woman wearing a black dress leans toward an arched mirror set into a wall, so we see the woman twice in this double portrait. We are situated slightly below her so we look up at the woman, who gazes down and to our right. The surface of the wall is smooth but lightly textured, like adobe. Trees reflected in the mirror indicate that this is outdoors. The woman in front of us takes up the left half of the composition. She faces our right in profile and leans to our right, at the far edge of the mirror. Her dark hair is pulled up in ribbon entwined braids. She wears long, chandelier style earrings and her high-necked black dress has puffed, lace sleeves. We see her face straight on in the mirror’s reflection. The woman’s distinctive brows knit together over her rounded nose.

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Sunil Gupta, London; (Hales Gallery, New York); NGA purchase, 2022.

Associated Names

Inscriptions

on verso, signed by artist, lower left in graphite: Sunil Gupta / Untitled #1 / Image-1998/Print-2020 / Edition #1/5; on recto, center right in negative: I call you / my love though / you are not my / love and it / breaks my / heart to tell you


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