[Untitled Silhouette of Man in Fedora]. [Lawrence, Kansas: 1992].
Plywood cut-out of man in fedora hat, painted white. Approximately 7' 9" x , 1' 10" x 4". With seven spray-paint cans attached to sculpture by chicken-wire mesh, and sprayed with shotgun pellet holes. One corner of fedora hat chipped, else fine.
Initialed “WSB†in pencil at lower left, additionally signed “William S. Burroughs†and dated 1992 in pencil on lower right. An interesting autobiographical piece.
William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) was one of the preeminent members of the Beat Literature movement, being a writer (Naked Lunch, 1959, his most famous and influential book), social critic, spoken word performer and artist. In 1984 he was elected to The American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. However, his distinguished writing career is sometimes overshadowed by his raucous personal life. His lifelong experimentation with narcotics is legendary, and strongly influenced his early work (including Naked Lunch). The most notorious episode of his life occurred in 1951 in Mexico; after a night of drinking at the American-owned Bounty Bar he and his common-law wife, Joan Vollmer, decided to play a game of "William Tell." She placed a shotglass on her head, and Burroughs drunkenly took aim with a pistol and fired, killing her instantly. He spent thirteen days in a Mexico City jail before his brother came to bribe officials to release him on bail. After trial preparations began to go poorly for Burroughs (his attorney had to flee Mexico because of his own legal troubles) he "skipped" Mexico and was convicted in absentia. The unintentional killing of his wife traumatized him, and marked his writing for the rest of his life.
He is known for his paintings, but his sculptures are rarer. Using his preferred medium of paint and shotgun blasts, this item is, like virtually all of his literary output, somewhat autobiographical in nature, depicting a man whose damaged insides are held together by the most fragile and common of materials.
ID:
3214
$
10,000