Acrylic collage on cream wove paper, 1973. 254x203 mm; 10x8 inches. Signed and dated "73" in pencil, lower right.
Provenance: gift from the artist, private collection, New York (circa 1975-6).
This wonderful collage of colorful slivers of acrylic by Jack Whitten marks the beginning of his important experimentation with the materiality of paint. Whitten describes these collages and his breakthrough in detail in a 2017 interview with Robert Storrs in Interviews on Art. Whitten learned how he could excavate the multi-layers of color acrylic paint he had built in his squeejee paintings with a sharp carpenter's tool. He then made collages like this one with jewel-like shards of paint. Whitten emphasizes how this moment was "a historical breakthrough" in 1973 - how he discovered "in 73 that paint could be used as collage".
Works on both canvas and paper from this 1973 series of "acrylic collages" were featured in Whitten's 2013 exhibition Light Years: Jack Whitten, 1971 – 1973 at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University.
