Female Bodybuilders

“[Schoeller’s portraits] give the face, the human expression, a new dimension, and that’s why we keep looking at them. That’s what portraits are for, what they are all about.”—David Remnick

Female Bodybuilders is the second monograph by contemporary artist and photographer Martin Schoeller. Schoeller is considered a contemporary master of portrait photography. Since 1999, Martin Schoeller has been contracted by The New Yorker to capture portraits of the most recognized personalities of our time. Through this and other magazines, he has photographed President Bill Clinton, Barak Obama, Tom Wolfe, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, and many others.

In this work, he turns his unique style to female body builders. In Schoeller’s words: “with Female Bodybuilders, I am trying to show the vulnerability that I see and feel in the subjects when I am with them, to get to the complex emotions behind a mask of extreme physical expression. These women mirror our modern cultural hunger for size, aggression, and attention at any cost. We are in the age of Bigness.” This limited print-run monograph is a must-have for collectors of contemporary art and photography.

From 1993 to 1996, Martin Schoeller was an assistant to Annie Leibovitz. Since embarking on his own career, Schoeller’s work has appeared in Vogue, GQ, Esquire, Entertainment Weekly, and W, among others. His first monograph, Close Up, was published in 2005. Exhibitions of this work will be on display in tandem with the Beijing Olympic Games and throughout cities in United States and Europe.