John Wesley: WesleyWorld — Works on Paper and Objects 1961–2004

John Wesley

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John Wesley WesleyWorld WORKS ON PAPER AND OBJECTS 1961–2004

January 12 – February 24, 2024 540 West 25th Street New York

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WesleyWorld Richard Shiff

The classic Indian Head or Buffalo nickel, designed by sculptor James Earle Fraser and minted from 1913 to 1938, has a style in relief somewhat like John Wesley’s work in two dimensions—a rendering bold and direct, emphasizing contours (fig. 1, p. 6). Wesley’s reductive version of Fraser’s profile head— Untitled (Indian Head) (1961; p. 16)—provides just enough of a comparative difference to indicate that the features of Wesley’s Native American constitute a countenance grim and possibly dejected, unlike the noble stoicism advanced by Fraser and the United States Mint. On the coin, the line of the mouth is straight, firm, impassive. The corresponding line in Wesley’s drawing turns downward ever so slightly, a result of his having eliminated Fraser’s distinction between mouth and jowl.

Do I attribute too much personality to Wesley’s variant of the Indian Head image? His art nearly always seduces its viewer, even a cautious one,

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into imagining more than can be modestly and logically concluded. Interpretive restraint seems unsuited to Wesley’s art despite its own graphic restraint, its characteristic paucity of detail. As an interpreter, I can take Wesley’s Indian Head at face value, as no more than a reductive mirroring of the familiar nickel, amusing in its stripped-down form, a condition that leads to comic irony (as in, say, Roy Lichtenstein’s plays on Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso). Yet I might also regard this stark Fig. 1 Buffalo nickel, designed by sculptor James Earle Fraser and minted from 1913 to 1938.

rendering as responsive to the sorry political history of settlers and indigenous peoples, not only in North America but globally.

The puzzling, open-ended ambiguity of Wesley’s depictions encourages expansive gestures of critique, whatever their ultimate merits.

To a theorist, his art readily demonstrates that interpretation has no limits, for every nuance of graphic difference initiates multiple interpretive threads with the potential to lead just about anywhere.

When Wesley toys with Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead, it becomes a commentary not only on American married life (as in the long-running comic strip created by Chic Young), but also a reflection on gender relations universally. In a work on canvas, Wesley shows Blondie kissing and caressing a brunette version of herself, the twinned

Fig. 2 John Wesley, First Kiss: Blondie Bumstead and Ynez Sanchez, 1991, acrylic on canvas, 54 × 44"

figures positioned within a shower stall for two: First Kiss: Blondie Bumstead and Ynez Sanchez (1991; fig. 2). The brunette Blondie has

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correspondingly darker skin, though still pinkish. Is this second Blondie the first Blondie’s narcissistic fantasy, or does the situation present to her, if not a racial difference, then an intriguing ethnic one? (Of course, lesbian lovers of various types also populate male fantasy life, and apparently that of Wesley himself.) Beyond Ynez Sanchez, Blondie encounters figures from Japanese art, characters already depicted in a style approaching Wesley’s linearity and flat application of color.

When Wesley introduced Japanese imagery, derived from popular prints of centuries past, he evoked the lessons of art history (the Japanese influence on nineteenth-century Europeans),

Fig. 3 John Wesley, Untitled (Blondie and a Kabuki) 2004, acrylic on paper, 22 3/4 × 18"

while also engaging in a complicated play of racial stereotypes. In Untitled (Blondie and a Kabuki) (2004; fig. 3), a nude Blondie appears to step into the pictorial past by caressing the mask-like face of a predatory Kabuki character.

Her gesturing hands mimic his, comically defusing the threat that his staged presence would otherwise evoke. Hands that threaten and hands that love can appear very much the same. Eroticism is psychologically fraught.

Wesley chose a particularly well-known image from the Kabuki tradition, recognizable to students of art, one created by Tōshūsai Sharaku in 1794 (fig. 4). In the Blondie version, this figure is reversed but otherwise rendered much as in the original print, with the color scheme preserved—red, green, and yellow against gray. Blondie’s pinkness is anomalous,

Fig. 4 Tōshūsai Sharaku, Kabuki Actor Ōtani Oniji III as Yakko Edobei, 1794, woodblock print; ink, color, and white mica on paper, 15 × 9 ⅞" | 38.1 × 25.1 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Henry L. Phillips Collection, Bequest of Henry L. Phillips, 1939

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and her golden hair extends slightly beyond

of interior modeling. His art generates X-rated

the drawn border that frames the Kabuki scene,

content in a sweet graphic manner attractive

as if she were entering an alien, self-contained

to all, including children.

Japanese environment; yet her color becomes key to a novel harmony. Wesley has depicted both the cross-cultural triumph of art and the overpowering, yet disarming force of sexual desire.

balances precariously on the edge of erotic titillation without quite crossing the line between straightforward naturalism (that is, realism) and salacious contrivance. A woman,

Another work featuring an East Asian character,

viewed head to hip level, is wearing a sweater

an herbalist, is likely to solicit inherent Western

vest and nothing else, posed as if she were

prejudices. The bespectacled herbalist may be

modeling the garment. At the very bottom

ministering to the benefit of a reclining client,

of this simple presentation, in a compositional

possibly naked; but the image also suggests

sense, her black pubic hair offsets the blackness

that a male doctor might be about to molest

of her head of hair above; and Wesley’s typical

an anesthetized female patient (see Herbalist,

tints of red, yellow, and blue occupy the area

2000; p. 73). Asians tend to be caricatured

between. Ultimately, the image may cause

in Wesley’s art, as they have been in Western

viewers to feel that they have been put into

culture generally; but Blondie and Dagwood,

a voyeuristic position without having desired

prototypical white people, have also been

or sought it (this psychological snare

caricatures since their inception in 1930,

characterizes Balthus’s art as well, and certain

an aspect of their appeal to Wesley.

works of Gustave Courbet, the subtler ones).

By unapologetically presenting caricatural

Suddenly, you see what you were not looking

types—even the Indian Head, already

for. Or were you? Wesley sets perceptual traps

stereotyped on the minted coin—Wesley may

for viewers who would prefer to remain naïve

have been unmasking our inability to do other

and innocent, if any are.

than typify all social and cultural identities.

His way of coloring his figures sugarcoats their political and psychological implications, as if to render the imagery harmless. Like many other Wesley images, Herbalist consists of pale red (pink), pale yellow, pale blue, and emphatic black, with relatively thin black outlining to define the figures, a compensation for the lack

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Sleeveless Sweater (Pink Woman) (1981; p. 44),

Wesley’s figures, both human and animal, repeat with little variation. Group repetition suits social identities that are typified; and theorists understand that, in fact, no identity can function as such unless reduced to type (a collection of invariant characteristics).

However crucial the recognition of defining

qualities may be to identities in their role

group, purposefulness to confusion, merely

in social relations, repetition of any kind is

become something risible? Untitled (Ducks)

inherently comical. Children, excellent

(1983; p. 70), presents a clearer case of

mimics themselves, laugh at the repetition

incompatibility; a number of black ducks,

of aural or visual stimuli. Adults find the

invariantly repetitive, form a rigid frame

behavior of identical twins amusing,

surrounding a group of white ducks that seem

triplets even more so. 3 Martyred British

somewhat more individualized and animated.

Officers (1970; p. 30), an absurd case of

The black ducks become a geometric

representational repetition, converts the

abstraction, a flat decoration, by comparison

tragedy of one to a comedy of three.

with the deregulated white ones, headed in the

Wesley’s illogic can be either dark or light

opposite direction. The white ducks are the

in emotional valence; 3 Martyred British

more naturalistic, some casting their reflections

Officers is both. In Migrating Birds (1976;

in the blue “water” that supports them.

p. 90), the repetitive bird-figures, arranged

For the black ducks, the same blue may be

in a narrow line, are walking rather than

no more than a designer’s arbitrary ground

flying. This is hardly an efficient way for birds

color. Here, illustrative realism competes

to migrate. The elongated composition itself

with decorative illustration.

suggests movement in a single direction, but the transit will prove exceedingly slow.

Ironically, the view may be of a single bird captured in successive cinematic frames, possibly not moving at all, immobile through a passage of time. More repetitive Wesley birds, but these in active flight: Untitled (Swallows) (1984; p. 64), shows a flock of swallows in migratory, even military, formation, while below, a less organized group of the same species creates a pattern suggesting a lack of determined directional movement (like multiple airplanes anxiously circling an airport because the landing strip has become obscured). Does Wesley’s depiction record natural aspects of bird behavior, or does the contrast, top group to bottom

WesleyWorld is decidedly retro, like the Bumsteads, who always seem to belong one or two generations back, despite surviving into the present. The televised boxing match that Wesley conceived in 1981— Untitled (Boxing Match) (p. 32)—assumes a boxy, cubic form, recalling the heavy-set receivers of the 1950s. Having a substantial lateral surface as well as its frontal face, this fanciful television projects its broadcast in at least two perspectives.

Yet the frontal image, with pastel tones of primary hues, is in WesleyColor, while the lateral plane of the box shows the same image in black-and-white. With respect to color transmission, Wesley seems to have been musing over the history of television

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technology. If the back side of the box were

material properties to signifying something

visible, perhaps it would project no clearly

in external nature to which it bears little if

discernable image at all, as in very early

any material connection. I have already referred

cathode-ray transmission when the “image”

to Wesley’s having tinkered with the line

consisted of little more than patterns of

between straightforward naturalism and

electronic interference. As for the depicted

provocative erotic contrivance in works like

boxer—or boxers, for the anamorphic

Untitled (Blondie and a Kabuki) and Sleeveless

relation of the two images lacks perfect

Sweater (Pink Woman). With Untitled

correspondence—he appears to have knocked

(Brown Squiggle), Wesley was hovering over

out the referee.

the aesthetic line between disciplined

To end this brief account of John Wesley’s art, consider another case of ironic repetition— that is, repetition with a difference—one where nothing in particular is being repeated.

Untitled (Brown Squiggle) (1987; p. 62), resembles a landscape because it features a lower band of brown and tan and an upper band of blue and white. The repetitious, squiggly whites plausibly represent clouds, for clouds have no definitive shape. But if the whites are clouds in a “sky,” then how to interpret the browns, which manifest the same forms below in “land”?

Are they waves, ridges, otherworldly sandworms, or just graphic squiggles? If mere squiggles passing over “land” is the safe choice, especially given Wesley’s title, then why decide that the squiggles passing over “sky” might serve a representational mission as clouds? Here, Wesley seems to probe a dilemma affecting both abstract formalists and representational realists: how to negotiate the point at which the painter’s mark or shape shifts from signifying no more than its own

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representation and liberated mark-making.

In both areas of his artistic exploration, the erotic and the aesthetic, viewers confront psychological and perceptual challenges hard to dodge. Wesley’s art tests our capacity to persist in rational interpretation while our feelings are being led along ambivalent emotional byways. When it comes to feeling, whether erotic or aesthetic, Wesley knew— or felt—that rationality no longer matters.

In WesleyWorld, interpretation has no standard of rationality to meet.

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Notice This Office Will Be Closed All Day September 29 For Gene Autry’s Birthday 1979 acrylic on paper 14 3/4 × 17 7/8" 12

Audubon’s Fish Hawk 1975 acrylic on paper 35 3/4 × 24" 14

Untitled (Indian Head) 1961 acrylic on paper 18 × 16 1/2" 16

Night Ship 1963 acrylic on paper 18 1/2 × 18 1/2" 18

Untitled (Running Woman) 1964 acrylic on paper 24 × 20" 20

Untitled (Man with Walrus) 1964 acrylic on paper 29 ⅜ × 25 ⅜" 22

Untitled (Man on Horse) 1964 acrylic on paper 24 × 19 7/8" 23

Herbert Hoover Highschool Gymnasts 1969 acrylic on paper 7 3/8 × 19" 24

John Dillinger’s Last Ride 1970 acrylic on paper 12 1/8 × 6 5/8" 25

Untitled (Monkeys) c. 1979 acrylic on paper 16 × 18 3/4" 28

3 Martyred British Officers 1970 acrylic on paper 9 ⅞ × 15 ¼" 30

Joke 1973 acrylic on paper 11 1/4 × 22" 31

Untitled (Boxing Match) 1981 acrylic on paper 14 × 21 3/4" 32

The Little Champ 1973 acrylic on paper 15 ¼ × 21 ⅞" 34

Untitled (Fruit Tree and Charred Aircraft) 1975 acrylic on paper 14 5/8 × 43 1/8" each sheet 14 5/8 × 86 1/4" overall 36

Untitled (Storm Sea) 1975 acrylic on paper 2 panels, 19 ¾ × 51 ⅛" overall 38

Bikini 1979 acrylic on canvas 17 × 12 1/2 × 2" bikini top 14 × 35 × 1" bikini bottom 40

Untitled (Black Stick Figure) 1978 acrylic on paper 14 1/8 × 17 3/4" 42

Sleeveless Sweater (Pink Woman) 1981 acrylic on paper 25 1/2 × 19 5/8" 44

Untitled (Pink Vest) 1981 acrylic on fabric 24 3/4 × 19 1/4 × 1 1/4" 45

Untitled (Rental Boats Echo Park Lake, Los Angeles) 1974 acrylic on paper 29 1/2 × 37 3/4" 46

Transport des Enfant 1978 acrylic on paper 19 3/4 × 25 1/2" 48

Neckties 1981 acrylic on paper, wood, push pins, and drawstring cord 66 × 22 1/2 × 1 5/8" 50

I’ll Dream You in My Sees 1965 duco and oil on canvas on found object (wood lamp) 31 × 29 1/2 × 29 1/2" 54

Untitled (Bird’s Eye View of Town) undated acrylic on paper 19 1/2 × 25 1/2" 56

Combe du Notaire 1989 acrylic on paper 11 5/8 × 13 3/4" 58

Untitled (Wave) 1979 acrylic on paper 9 3/4 × 25 1/2" 60

Untitled (Brown Squiggle) 1987 acrylic on paper 22 ⅝ × 30 ¼" 62

Untitled (Swallows) 1984 acrylic on paper 17 1/2 × 15" 64

Untitled (Black Car) 1989 acrylic on paper 9 3/4 × 16 1/4" 66

Homeless Bumstead 1990 acrylic on paper 20 3/4 × 17 1/2" 67

Untitled (Ducks) 1983 acrylic on paper 2 panels, 35 ¼ × 58 ½" overall

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Blue Blanket 2000 acrylic on paper 22 1/2 × 29 3/4" 72

Herbalist 2000 acrylic on paper 26 3/4 × 22 1/2" 73

Untitled (Joke) 2000 acrylic on paper 11 ¾ × 15 ¼" 74

Concord 2004 acrylic on paper 18 × 19 3/8" 76

Bathers 1975 acrylic on paper 19 3/4 × 25" 78

3 Nudes 1983 gouache on paper 19 ¾ × 25 ⅝" 80

Untitled (Woman on Back) 1993 acrylic on paper 18 1/4 × 26 1/4" 82

Untitled 1998 acrylic on paper 9 7/8 × 29" 84

Untitled (Pink Leg) 2004 acrylic on paper 13 1/2 × 30" 85

Untitled (Mangez des Fruits) 1978 acrylic on paper 19 1/2 × 25 1/2" 88

Migrating Birds 1976 acrylic on paper 5 elements, 6 × 43" each 90

List of Works

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Notice This Office Will Be Closed All Day September 29 For Gene Autry’s Birthday

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1964 acrylic on paper

1979

24 × 19 7/8"

acrylic on paper

14 ¾ × 17 ⅞"

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Audubon’s Fish Hawk

acrylic on paper

acrylic on paper

7 ⅜ × 19"

35 ¾ × 24"

Untitled (Indian Head)

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acrylic on paper

acrylic on paper

12 ⅛ × 6 ⅝"

18 × 16 1/2"

Night Ship

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acrylic on paper

acrylic on paper

16 × 18 ¾"

18 ½ × 18 ½"

30 Untitled (Running Woman)

acrylic on paper

acrylic on paper

9 ⅞ × 15 ¼"

24 × 20"

31 Untitled (Man with Walrus) 1964 acrylic on paper 29 ⅜ × 25 ⅜"

3 Martyred British Officers 1970

1964

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Untitled (Monkeys) c. 1979

1963

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John Dillinger’s Last Ride 1970

1961

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Herbert Hoover Highschool Gymnasts 1969

1975

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Untitled (Man on Horse)

Joke 1973 acrylic on paper 11 ¼ × 22"

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Untitled (Boxing Match)

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1981

1981

acrylic on paper

acrylic on paper

14 × 21 ¾"

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25 ½ × 19 ⅝"

The Little Champ 1973

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acrylic on fabric

15 ¼ × 21 ⅞"

Untitled (Fruit Tree and Charred Aircraft)

24 ¾ × 19 ¼ × 1 ¼"

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Los Angeles) 1974

acrylic on paper

acrylic on paper

14 5/8 × 43 1/8" each sheet

29 ½ × 37 ¾"

14 5/8 × 86 1/4" overall

Untitled (Storm Sea)

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1978

acrylic on paper

acrylic on paper

Bikini

19 3/4 × 25 ½"

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Neckties

1979

1981

acrylic on canvas

acrylic on paper, wood, push pins,

14 × 35 × 1" bikini bottom

66 × 22 ½ × 1 ⅝"

17 × 12 ½ × 2" bikini top

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Transport des Enfant

1975 2 panels, 19 ¾ × 51 ⅛" overall

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Untitled (Rental Boats Echo Park Lake,

1975

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Untitled (Pink Vest) 1981

acrylic on paper

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Sleeveless Sweater (Pink Woman)

Untitled (Black Stick Figure) 1978 acrylic on paper

14 ⅛ × 17 ¾"

and drawstring cord

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I’ll Dream You in My Sees

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Untitled (Black Car)

1965

1989

duco and oil on canvas on found object

acrylic on paper

9 ¾ × 16 ¼"

(wood lamp)

31 × 29 ½ × 29 ½" 69 56

Untitled (Bird’s Eye View

Homeless Bumstead 1990

of Town)

acrylic on paper

undated

20 ¾ × 17 ½"

acrylic on paper

19 1/2 × 25 1/2"

70

Untitled (Ducks) 1983

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Combe du Notaire

acrylic on paper

1989

2 panels, 35 ¼ × 58 ½" overall

acrylic on paper

11 ⅝ × 13 ¾"

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Blue Blanket 2000

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Untitled (Wave)

acrylic on paper

1979

22 ½ × 29 ¾"

acrylic on paper

9 ¾ × 25 ½"

73

Herbalist 2000

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Untitled (Brown Squiggle)

acrylic on paper

1987

26 ¾ × 22 ½"

acrylic on paper

22 ⅝ × 30 ¼" 64

Untitled (Swallows) 1984 acrylic on paper

17 ½ × 15"

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Untitled (Joke) 2000 acrylic on paper

11 ¾ × 15 ¼"

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Concord

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2004

1978

acrylic on paper

acrylic on paper

19 ½ × 25 ½"

18 × 19 ⅜"

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Bathers 1975 acrylic on paper 19 ¾ × 25"

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3 Nudes 1983 gouache on paper

19 ¾ × 25 ⅝"

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Untitled (Woman on Back) 1993 acrylic on paper

18 ¼ × 26 ¼"

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Untitled 1998 acrylic on paper

9 ⅞ × 29"

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Untitled (Mangez des Fruits)

Untitled (Pink Leg) 2004 acrylic on paper

13 ½ × 30"

90

Migrating Birds 1976 acrylic on paper

5 elements, 6 × 43" each

Published on the occasion of

John Wesley WesleyWorld: Works on Paper and Objects 1961–2004 January 12 – February 24, 2024 Pace Gallery 540 West 25th Street New York Publication © 2024 Pace Publishing Artworks by John Wesley © John Welsey Text by Richard Shiff © 2024 Richard Shiff Front and back cover: Untitled (Rental Boats Echo Park Lake, Los Angeles) 1974 (detail) p. 4: 3 Nudes, 1983 (detail) p. 11: Night Ship, 1963 (detail) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Every reasonable effort has been made to identify owners of copyright.

Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions.

Photography: Thomas Baker / Alamy Stock Photo: p. 6; fig. 1 Guy Ben-Ari: p. 21 Ian Densford: p. 41 Courtesy Fredericks & Freiser, NY: p. 6; fig. 2 Richard Gary: pp. cover, back cover, 4, 7; fig. 3, 13, 15, 17, 22–27, 30–31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 43–45, 47, 55, 57, 59, 61, 63, 66–69, 72–73, 77, 89 Melissa Goodwin: pp. 29, 65, 75, 83–87 Kris Graves: pp. 11, 19, 49, 71, 79 Christine Ann Jones: pp. 51–53 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY: p. 7; fig. 4 Jonathan Nesteruk: pp. 81, 91–93 Creative Director: Tomo Makiura Design: Alexis Liebes, Tara Stewart Senior Production Director: Paul Pollard Editorial Director: Gillian Canavan Editorial Manager: Madeline Gilmore Rights & Reproductions: Vincent Wilcke Typeset in Termina and Sirba ISBN: 978-1-948701-72-3