Darrel Ellis (1958-1992)
Darrel Ellis was a Bronx-born and New York–based mixed media artist, who worked in photography, painting and sculpture, until his life was cut short by AIDS in 1992, at the age of 33.
Ellis discovered a cache of photographs from the 1950s by his father Thomas Ellis, who suffered a brutal death at the hands of police officers a month before Ellis was born, becoming his work’s starting point. Ellis projected, reworked and re-photographed these images into paintings and drawings, exploring identity within the family dynamic and rewriting the familial narrative as a kind of self-therapy. After graduating high school, Ellis worked as a security guard at the Museum of Modern Art, attended the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program, and was awarded an Artist in Residence at MoMA PS1. Darrel Ellis’ work gained national attention when it was seen in the landmark exhibition, Witnesses: Against Their Vanishing, curated by Nan Goldin in 1989 at Artists Space in New York City. Witnesses became a rallying cry against censorship when the NEA withdrew funding because of a catalogue essay by David Wojnarowicz. Further, it was Ellis’ self-portrait–based on a photograph of Ellis by Robert Mapplethorpe–that became the publicity picture most widely used and appearing with articles in The New York Times and Art in America, among many others.
Ellis first received major public exposure in 1992 when his work was included in New Photography 8 at The Museum of Modern Art, curated by Peter Galassi, which occurred one year after his first solo show at the gallery Baron/Boisante on 57th Street. The MoMA show took place several months after Ellis’ death in 1992. A major retrospective of Ellis’ work was mounted in 1997 at Art in General, curated by the artist Allan Frame. In 2019, OSMOS presented a survey of Darrel Ellis’ oeuvre, including the lesser-known but brilliant drawings and paintings from photography.
Darrel Ellis
Untitled (Portrait of Joseph Tansle, artist's Great Uncle, Thomas Ellis photo), c. 1980-1990
Gelatin Silver Print
11 x 14 in (27.94 x 35.56 cm)
Darrel Ellis
Untitled (Family Party), c. 1980-1990
Ink on paper
15.5 x 15.5 in
Darrel Ellis
Untitled (self-portrait asking for change), 1990
oil, modeling paste, and wax
15 x 12 in (38.10 x 30.48 cm)
