FULL SPECTRUM 2012 | AUCTION LOT 15

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Bruce Conner
SET OF FIVE, 1970 – 71 
Offset lithograph
8 × 7 1/8 inches
Ed. 25/90
Courtesy of Gallery Paule Anglim 

Retail value: $5,000

Bruce Conner (1933 – 2008) worked in a variety of media and styles—painting, drawing, sculpture, assemblage, photography, and collage. Connor was associated with several movements in San Francisco’s counter-culture scenes: beat poetry, punk music, and underground films—to none of which he held any allegiance for too long. SET OF FIVE is an excellent example of Bruce Conner’s visual and conceptual language in printmaking, a break-through achievement that would resonate with future printmakers and audiences alike.

In the 1960s, at a time when many artists were integrating industrial materials (such as neon, fluorescent lights, resin, and cast acrylic) into their work, Conner chose humble felt-tip pen, a choice that allowed him to leave his distinctive mark on the graphic medium. The pen could be used without having to stop to replenish the ink, and Conner produced a series of incredibly intricate, mazelike drawings in which the lines never intersect. The mandala, a large circular image representing the universe in Buddhist and Hindu symbolism, is strongly represented. For Conner, “It has a purpose. It relates to centering yourself or focusing your attention, your consciousness.” 

Conner made offset lithographs from these drawings to document and preserve them and to reach a larger audience. He defied traditional printmaking practices by choosing to use a photomechanical rather than a fine-art printing process. This process, however, allowed Conner to rework his drawings and improve the composition. 

Born in 1933 in McPherson, Kansas, Bruce Conner was educated at Wichita University, Kansas (now Wichita State University) and University of Nebraska, Lincoln (BFA., 1956). He continued his art studies on scholarship at the Brooklyn Museum Art School (1956) and at the University of Colorado, Boulder (1957). Conner’s work has been featured in numerous national and international exhibitions. His work is included in such notable collections as the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, San Francisco; Art Institute of Chicago; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California; Denver Art Museum; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Oakland Museum of California; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; San Jose Museum of Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut. Connor died in 2008 in San Francisco.

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