PDF - Current Image & Data

Carl's (Primary Title)

Robert Cottingham, American, born 1935 (Artist)

1977
American
Prints
Works On Paper
Etching with aquatint printed in black and grey inks on wove.
Modern and Contemporary Art
Sheet: 17 1/8 × 17 3/8 in. (43.5 × 44.13 cm)
Image: 10 1/8 × 10 5/16 in. (25.72 × 26.19 cm)
Framed: 20 × 24 in. (50.8 × 60.96 cm)
2016.438
Not on view

The photorealist and Pop artist Robert Cottingham sees himself squarely within the tradition of the Precisionist painters Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeler. Based on a 1975 painting of the same name, which is itself based on photographs of the site, Carl’s possesses the building facades, truncated signs, and storefronts, as well as dynamic diagonals, for which the artist is known, referencing Demuth’s urban imagery, especially works like Rue de Singe qui Pêche.The aquatint medium yields a richness and uniformity of surface values, tying his work yet closer to the formal properties of much earlier Precisionist work. Cottingham’s recurring angles and hard edges of commercial signage find their origins in the artist’s work, early in his career, as an art director for an advertising firm, overseeing typographic design and layout.

Signed in graphite at lower right corner of sheet, recto: “COTTINGHAM 77”.
Two blindstamps at lower left corner recto; third partial blindstamp (paper maker?) along bottom edge. Stamped in grey ink at lower left corner verso: “© COPYRIGHT 1980 / LANDFALL PRESS, INC. / 215 W. Superior Street / Chicago, Illinois / 60610”
Inscribed by the artist at lower edge of sheet, recto: “27/50” and “Carl’s”. Inscribed in graphite at lower left corner, verso: “RC-77-667E”. Inscribed in graphite at lower right corner, verso: “2-80-28”.
Gift of Dorothy and Jerry Canter
© Robert Cottingham

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