Thursday, June 21, 2007

Two Bikes and a Print

An attempt at a trick photo shows one of the best presents I ever received (thank you Tom), a cherry red Raleigh (or Hercules?), here fitted out with butterfly handlebars, an analog odometer, and stripped of fenders (superfluous in Altadena, California). I suppose this was about 1966.

C
onversation at the Spencer Museum with Kris today turned to one of my favorite links
between cycling and printmaking. We got onto the subject of Alfred Jarry (1873-1907), who was as interesting for his activities as a pataphysician, print enthusiast and printmaker, as for his much better-known activities as a playwright. Jarry’s bike, which he dubbed, “that which rolls” was an 1896 ClĂ©ment Luxe racer.

This reminds me that two late nineteenth-century printmakers stumbled upon a recipe for compounding a semi-transparent soft-ground that made use of a substance in bicycle patch kits, but that is for another day.

In response to an earlier
comment I'll post an image of James Ensor's 1888 sulfur-ground and drypoint print of stars over a cemetary.

No comments: