Baldessari, John (1931-2020)

A few rays of hope: Baldessari, Brach, Cohen, Harrison, Schapiro, Todd [poster]

La Jolla, California: University of California, San Diego, Art Gallery, [1968]. Poster. Offset lithograph printed in black with light blue sky on uncoated white paper. 46.5 cm x 59.7 cm / 18.3 in x 23.5 in. John Baldessari designed this subtly witty poster for a 1968 group show of artists associated with UCSD in its opening years. It consists of 6 full-length portraits of Baldessari, Paul Brach, Harold Cohen, Newton Harrison, Miriam Schapiro (Brach's wife), and Michael Todd. All have been cut out from other photos and posed under a Pacific Outdoor billboard in a typical suburban scrubland, with a train on tracks to the right, and strip development along a road to the left; the location looks like the Coast Highway in Solana Beach, the first of the small towns in San Diego County north of Del Mar. Entertainingly, the figures all appear to be floating, and all are scaled to the same height, though Baldessari was 6' 7" and Mimi Schapiro was perhaps 5' 2" or 3" in her bare feet. OCLC locates only one copy, at UCSD, which came from the collection of the architect Russell Forrester, as I recall. This copy, folded in four for mailing, is from the collection of John's close friend, the artist Richard Allen Morris, and shows its age with signs of handling, three pairs of staple holes at the top edge, and a small gap in one of the folds. It has received expert attention from paper conservator Karen Zukor of Oakland. Vanishingly scarce.



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Price: $2,000.00