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A Feminine Thought (portfolio), 1971
Plate 11.6 x 9.6 in. / 29.5 x 24.5 cm
Paper 27.2 x 20.9 in. / 69 x 53 cm
2 prints in portfolio with label, intaglio printing (drypoint) in dark green on white handmade paper. Label is offset lithograph on white paper. Signed and dated 71 lower right in pencil. Edition of 50 with 6 artist’s proofs. Printed by Karl Schulz, Braunschweig, and published by Petersburg Press, London.
Dieter Roth’s interest in geometry, transformation, and iteration is on display in this portfolio of two etchings in dark green ink. Each depicts a woman’s figure on all fours, transforming into and from a table, respectively. Each stage of transformation is represented on a new tier: a stepped pyramid, contained by the artist’s precise linework. Behind the stacked figures is a window towards which the woman directs her attention. Equal parts quixotic, whimsical, and disturbing, this portfolio was produced in the early 1970s when Roth was experimenting with similarly tight, curvilinear and geometric forms in their physical environments. Often gridded and bisected by hatched lines, these works are reminiscent of architectural or topographic diagrams.
Condition report:
B: 1-3mm Rust colored stains lower right, upper middle. Edges worn. One 5” and a 1” soft vertical creases lower left corner/left edge, horseshoe crease lower middle, various soft creases throughout sheet especially upper sheet, some waviness upper edge, .5” crease lower right corner, softly creased 1” area middle left edge
A: Lower edge of paper is rippled, various soft creases 1-3” throughout upper sheet and left edge, upper edge is worn and discolored
Dieter Roth was a printmaker from childhood: his first etching at the age of 16 was scratched into a soda can, and despite the failure of the can to print anything but a shadow of ink, he continued his study and by 20 was a serious apprentice in lithography to a well-known commercial artist, Eugen Jordi. Later he would continue to print and publish much of his own work. From the 1960s onward, his collaborations with Petersburg Press brought him international recognition and produced some of his most celebrated work: 6 Piccadillies (1970), and Containers (1972).
Interested in chance and spontaneity, Roth was drawn to make prints using unorthodox means: according to mathematical principles, using equations, or by randomly rearranging blocks before they were run through the press. The artist often printed plates repeatedly in different colors, producing many variations from just a few images. He used the printing press and materials to interrogate the creative process rather than just as tools to achieve an edition of identical prints: for example, overprinting or under-inking, or running objects through the press (in 1968, a box of chocolates). Roth was not just interested in the chance of making pictures but the unpredictability of decay: allowing the grease from slices of meat to slowly contaminate paper, immersing a print in vegetable juice, clamping metal to paper to produce rust, and pouring chocolate over a finished work.
Roth would make hundreds of print editions and books over his career and blurred the line between genres and mediums, embarking on prodigious collaborations and experimentation with music, poetry, art, and literary works.
Condition report:
B: 1-3mm Rust colored stains lower right, upper middle. Edges worn. One 5” and a 1” soft vertical creases lower left corner/left edge, horseshoe crease lower middle, various soft creases throughout sheet especially upper sheet, some waviness upper edge, .5” crease lower right corner, softly creased 1” area middle left edge
A:
Lower edge of paper is rippled, various soft creases 1-3” throughout upper sheet and left edge, upper edge is worn and discolored
