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From 1961 until 1987, Antonio and Juan created a vibrant body of work that helped usher in a dynamic new era in high fashion. Working as a team, Antonio created the drawings and paintings with his masterful, adept hand, while Juan served primarily as Art Director and influenced the art work with his deep knowledge of color theory, spatial design, and art history. Together, they continously innovated, with an always distinctive but versatile style.
Simultaneous to their professional practice, the duo produced an oeuvre of personal work that celebrated the diverse community around them and documented a stunning evolution of the queer urban man throughout the second half of the 20th century.
This selection of original works in The Antonio Archives offers an overview of Antonio and Juan’s collaborative practice throughout the years. Included below are unfinished studies, completed editorial and commercial pieces, and personal drawings and painting.
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The Antonio Archives houses an extensive collection of tear sheets from the 1960s through the 1980s that provide researchers, curators, and fashion enthusiasts a look at the historical context of Antonio and Juan’s original drawings.
Spanning three decades, the tearsheets trace the evolution of fashion through the late 20th century as styles radically shifted and the depiction of women in media took a bold new direction in its portrayal of beauty, sexuality, and gender.
The Antonio Archives uses tearsheets as a valuable tool to date, catalogue, and identify works, in addition to creating a comprehensive inventory of works no longer in our possession. If you have tearsheets that you would like to donate to the archives, please be in touch via our Contact page -
Antonio and Juan’s influence as arbiters of style extended well beyond their celebrated two-dimensional work. They ventured into designing concept drawings and prototypes for garments, shoes, jewelry, textiles, and more.
Beginning in the 1970s and continuing through the 1980s, they collaborated with iconic brands such as Fiorucci, Shiseido, and Bloomingdale’s, lending their expertise to merchandising, advertising, and packaging design, as well as producing a never-realized line of eponymous scarves for the Japanese market.
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In addition to a broad collection of artwork, The Antonio Archives houses sketches, correspondence, personal items, and rare materials that provide insight into Antonio and Juan’s process, inspiration, and creative collaborations.
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In the early 1970s Antonio began experimenting with a Kodak Instamatic camera to document the glamorous people and exotic places around him.
In addition to his portrait studies and reportage assemblages, Antonio began several series that used a prop or location as an ongoing motif; a plastic sheet obscuring the face, a body partially submerged in water, or a sculptural red coat appear regularly in this extensive body of work.Inspired by the rapid pace of photography, Antonio often shot numerous frames of a single subject and later curated the resulting photographs into a 3 x 3 grid composition, creating nuanced portraits of his models and friends.
Unlike the commercial work for which he and Juan were known, the Kodak Instamatics created during Antonio’s lifetime were mostly personal and were often created without any editorial or commercial intent.
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Antonio began experimenting with a Polaroid SX-70 camera during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Much like his other photographic work from this time, the Polaroids that Antonio created were a mix of behind-the-scenes documentation, portraiture, and everyday still lives that were largely personal in nature
In 1979 Antonio and Juan hosted the legendary “Photo Cocktail Party” at the Robert Freidus Gallery in New York City. In the spirit of the artistic “happening”, party-goers were invited to pose in front of a gray backdrop for a large-format Polaroid camera. The resulting images were installed directly onto the gallery walls as the night progressed to document the ephemeral party experience in real time. -
Unlike the commercial work for which Antonio and Juan were known, the photographs created during their lifetime were mostly personal in nature and were often created without any editorial or commercial intent.
However, at times, the Antonio and Juan used the photographs as objects, layering them into collage - both personal and professional.
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Antonio and Juan produced several books during their lifetimes including Antonio’s Girls (Congreve, 1982) , and Antonio’s Tales from the Thousand and One Nights (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1985).
Following Antonio’s death in 1987, Juan edited Antonio 60, 70, 80 (Thames & Hudson, 1995) which provided a retrospective look at their thirty year collaborative career.
In the years since, The Antonio Archives has partnered with publishers and institutions to produce numerous monographs and catalogues that provide deeper insight into the life and career of Antonio and Juan.