Details
SUZIE ZUZEK (AMERICAN, 1920-2011)
Trinket
watercolor, ink, graphite, and white gouache on paper
15 x 22 in. (38.1 x 55.9 cm.) (unframed)
Executed in 1971.
Provenance
Created for Key West Hand Print Fabrics, Inc., Key West, Florida, 1971.
Acquired by Lilly Pulitzer, Inc., Palm Beach, Florida, sold Key West Hand Print Fabrics, Inc., 1985 to private owners.
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 2016.
Literature
Susan Brown and Caroline Rennolds Milbank, Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Artist Behind an Iconic American Fashion Brand, 1962–1985, New York, 2020, p. 21 (illustrated).
Exhibited
New York, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Prints That Made the Fashion Brand, 1962–1985, June 2021–January 2022.
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Lot Essay

This watercolor is based off Zuzek's real life pet monkey, Trinket, who lived in her backyard in downtown Key West. Trinket had run of the island and would come and go from Zuzek's house through his own personal door. Trinket turned up in many of Zuzek's patterns over the years, and here he appears making mischief and drinking martinis.

Trained at Pratt in New York, Zuzek was highly knowledgeable on the history of textile design. She was particularly inspired by medieval tapestries like the Unicorn Tapestries at the Met Cloisters, which show the animal on a flower-covered background. This so-called 'millefleur' technique is a clear inspiration for the present watercolor, where the background is almost completely covered in flowers.

This joyful print appeared in dozens of color ways and on a children's dress in 1972.

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