“It’s really Eastern philosophy. After a day’s work, you march in and wipe your hands off on a paper towel. You are wiping off the things you did all day, never knowing when your best gesture is made, when your creative ability might be showing.”
—James Rosenquist The same year he created A Drawing While Waiting for an Idea – a lithograph printed on a tan paper towel – Rosenquist commissioned the fashion designer Horst to construct him a suit made of brown paper obtained directly from the Kleenex company. Tired of renting tuxedos and owning primarily paint-splattered clothes, Rosenquist wore the garment around New York, to gallery and museum openings; people would stop the artist on the street to ask what he was wearing. The suit, which like A Drawing While Waiting for an Idea reflects Rosenquist’s interest in utilizing unconventional types of paper to new ends, finally crumbled when Rosenquist visited Tokyo to participate in an exhibition of American painting in October 1966: Jasper Johns wrote to Universal Limited Art Editions founder Tatyana Grosman: “Nothing much new. Rosenquist’s brown paper suit broke at a geisha bar today.”i
Rosenquist wearing his paper suit in the garment district of New York, 1966. Courtesy of the Estate of James Rosenquist.
i James Rosenquist, Painting Below Zero: Notes on a Life in Art, 2009, p. 173.
Exhibited
Houston, The Menil Collection and The Museum of Fine Arts, James Rosenquist: A Retrospective, May 17 – August 17, 2003 (this impression) New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, James Rosenquist: A Retrospective, October 16, 2003 – January 18, 2004 (this impression)
Literature
Esther Sparks 6 Constance Glenn 14 Walter Hopps and Sarah Bancroft, James Rosenquist: A Retrospective, 2003, no. 243, p. 343 (this impression illustrated)
1966 Lithograph in colors, on tan paper towel, with full margins. I. 5 1/2 x 6 5/8 in. (14 x 16.8 cm) S. 14 7/8 x 9 3/8 in. (37.8 x 23.8 cm) Signed, dated and numbered 22/52 in pencil (there were also some artist's proofs), published by Universal Limited Art Editions, West Islip, New York (with their blindstamp), framed.