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.

Conversation 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 Clément 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.