The Starn Twins (Doug and Mike)
American, born 1961
Green Mater Dolorosa
1987
Toned silver gelatin prints mounted on board
239 x 188 cm
Gift of the Cooper Fund, Inc., 1988.164
© Doug and Mike Starn

The Starn twins really are twin brothers who make art together. They often choose major images of western art to photograph and reproduce in unusual and puzzling ways. This madonna by fifteenth-century artist Dieric Bouts is one of the most copied images in the history of art. The Starns photographed Bouts’ original painting. Back in their studio, they projected an enlarged image onto twelve pieces of light-sensitive paper, printed the twelve separate images of fragments of the painting, and tinted them green to make their new work look old. Find the joints where the Starn twins taped the prints together to make one large, weeping Madonna.