Untitled (Double Silhouette)

Description

This collage, a portrait of sorts, is grounded by two superimposed silhouettes belonging to Bill Wilson and May Wilson. Ray Johnson met Bill in 1956 and began corresponding with him and his mother, May, later that year. Bill would soon become Johnson’s foremost critic and collector, as well as the artist’s self-appointed archivist, eventually amassing the largest collection of Johnson’s works, including Untitled (Silhouette). Over the next thirty years, Johnson maintained close ties with Bill and with May, an artist herself. Here, their profiles appear fused and engulfed by Johnson’s cache of recurring motifs, including snakes, bunny heads, and the handwritten name of the poet Marianne Moore. Near the top of the image, Johnson also incorporated his own photographic likeness—upside down, repeated, and enclosed in perforated squares that suggest postage stamps. Though he engaged it obliquely, portraiture was a natural extension of Johnson’s interest in people and a means of weaving an interconnected web of intimate relationships.

Provenance

The artist, New York; the Ray Johnson Estate, New York, 1995; sold to William S. Wilson III (1932–2016), New York, through Richard L. Feigen & Co., c. 2006–2008; by descent to Andrew, Ara, and Kate Wilson, New York, 2016; sold through Adler Beatty, New York, to private collection, 2018; promised as a gift to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2018.

Untitled (Double Silhouette)

Ray Johnson

1993

Accession Number

248675

Medium

Brush and black wash, with touches of incising, opaque watercolor, and graphite, and collage of various cut and pasted papers on board

Dimensions

33.5 × 30.3 cm (13 1/4 × 11 15/16 in.)

Classification

collage

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Promised gift of The William S. Wilson Collection of Ray Johnson