Details
BETYE SAAR (B. 1926)
Blow Top Blues: The Fire Next Time
lithograph in colors with collage and hand-coloring, on Rives paper, 1998, signed, titled and dated in yellow pencil, numbered 11/45, printed at SOLO Impression, New York, with their blindstamp, published by Vincent Fitzgerald & Co., New York, the full sheet, in very good condition, framed
Sheet: 2718 x 2238 in. (689 x 568 mm.)
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Lot Essay

"At the time Xerox was very popular with artists. You know, whenever a machine is obsolete, artists get a hold of it. In this work Betye used a Xerox of an image she took from a cereal box, which was like a mask without eyes. We cut out the eyes and then on the original she wrote a word on the figure’s turban: liberation. Then the whole thing was Xeroxed and then glued to a lithograph. What's particularly interesting about that print for today's context is that there were fires in Los Angeles at the time, and she went in her backyard and photographed flames. Then I photo-interpreted the flames in a different way. Usually you print CMYK, but instead I took all the separations and printed them in flamelike colours, so we get those very vigorous orange and red flames flickering behind the head." -Judith Solodkin

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