Paul Blanca - portrait

Beautiful C-print by Paul Blanca in new condition.
Acquired from private collection. Signed and titled with silverpoint. A3 in perfect condition.

You can view the work in advance at the Rotor gallery in Gorinchem and collect it after the auction or have it sent to you by registered mail.
After consultation, you can have your purchases stored in our heated storage space and collect them at a later stage.

We can also take care of your framing.



This item falls under the margin scheme


Paul Blanca, pseudonym of Paul Vlaswinkel, (Curaçao, November 11, 1958 – Amsterdam, October 15, 2021) was a Dutch photographer. In his younger years he was described as a 'volatile' person with a lot of energy, but at the same time also with a vulnerable sensitivity. Blanca made portraits in which he molested himself with razors, wire, arrows, nails, and needle and thread. One of his most famous photos is with a crying Mickey Mouse, carved into Blanca's back.
Life and work
In his younger years, Blanca practiced kickboxing at a high level. According to himself, his first camera was a Canon F1, a camera he had obtained through a burglary. Once started as a young photographer, Blanca worked with Hans van Manen and, as a non-dancer, he was given a leading role in Piano Variations IV by Van Manen. His developed motor skills and skills in kickboxing were central to the choreography that was devised for him. As photographers, Blanca and Van Manen worked together on a series of photos in which they photographed themselves, each other and others, with the theme: 'The man as a lust object'.
In the mid-eighties Blanca became friends with fellow artists such as Rob Scholte and Koos Dalstra. With Dalstra he published a series of double portraits in 1986, Timing. Fifty portraits of people from the Amsterdam art world with photos by Blanca and poems by Dalstra. Blanca also met and befriended the American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. In the field of photography, Mapplethorpe considered Blanca "his only competitor".
In the late eighties/early nineties Blanca stayed in Zaragoza for about two years and documented bullfighting there. This eventually resulted in a series of silkscreen prints called Sangre de Toro (Blood of the Bull). Instead of ink he actually used the blood of the bulls for the prints. Around this time Blanca also started writing columns, first for a year for Het Parool but later also for Nieuwe Revu. In this magazine he not only reported on his life as an artist but also on his life as a drug addict and his experiences with the criminal circuit.
In the mid-nineties Blanca was accused of the bombing of Rob Scholte and his then wife Micky Hoogendijk. Scholte himself made this accusation in an interview, an accusation that would never be proven. The result of this affair was that Blanca lost his popularity as a photographer and he became increasingly isolated within the art world
In 2021, the film Paul Blanca, This film will save your life by director Ramón Gieling was released. This documentary provides a portrait of Blanca's great talent and his life, work and downfall. The film was announced upon release with a preamble that it looked like he "didn't have long to live".
Blanca passed away on October 15, 2021 at the age of 62. With the beautiful book that was recently published, there is a lot of attention for his work.