Sun, Moon, Title Page

Artist Alan J. Shields (1944 - 2005)

Date1971

Mediumsilkscreen with dye, vegetable printing, thread, two-sided

DimensionsFrame: 26 1/2 x 26 1/2 in. (67.3 x 67.3 cm) Image (varied): 26 1/8 x 26 1/4 in. (66.4 x 66.7 cm)

SignedAlan Shields ‘71

Credit LineGift of Barbara B. Millhouse

Object number1983.2.14

DescriptionSun Moon Title Page is the first and most significant print from Alan Shields’s multi-year collaboration with master printmaker Bill Weege in the 1970s. After accepting a commission from Rory O’Neil, and on the advice of his publisher, Shields arranged to work with Weege, then teaching in the art department at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Shields took an active and unorthodox role when working with master printers. In this instance, he purchased one hundred sheets of Arches rag paper for the eventual one hundred prints in his edition, cutting them down into large squares of 26 by 26 inches, and saving the off-cuts, namely two smaller squares and a rectangle. This retention and subsequent recycling of scrap material for use in future art projects was typical of Shields’s aesthetic process in all media. He shipped the paper pieces by crate to Wisconsin, requesting that Weege pre-print a half-inch checkerboard square onto the large squares. Once Shields arrived in Wisconsin, the printing process began in earnest and continued for several weeks. As Weege recalled, it soon involved “all kinds of things that boggled my mind,” including “dipping the whole sheets into dye,” using potato prints, and sawing diagonal cuts in the paper. The leftover pieces of Arches paper were also printed, cut into rectangular strips, and organized into individual packets. Shields remembered that “everyone”—meaning he, Weege, and some University of Wisconsin graduate students—was given a packet and asked to slip the individual strips through the cuts any way they chose. These strips, visible on both sides, thus appear in different configurations in each print. So as Weege succinctly put it, “the whole idea of consistency went out the window.” [1]

In looking at Sun Moon Title Page, side A has a ground sheet that was first dyed gray and then silkscreened with a checkerboard of half-inch darker gray squares. The same shade of dark gray was printed as semicircles placed along the four side edges of the sheet, two on top and two below, with just one on the left and right side edges. Machine stitching is evident on side A as a fairly straight line nearly across the full width of the image, just short on the left side. Above is a double track stitch in a u-shape, reminiscent of a beaded necklace. The relative drabness of the gray is offset by the brilliantly colored paper strips woven through cuts in the composition. In addition, potato prints have been stamped on the surrounding semicircular shapes. On the verso or side B, one sees the reverse of the woven colored strips against the dyed gray ground sheet, but there the similarity to side A ends. A strong black vertical strip from top midway along the left edge provides contrast to the gray, and both bottom triangular corners are printed in warm tones of yellow and red. The checkerboard pattern reappears printed in a subtle yellow, with more potato-print impressions. Double stitching anchors these dyed color triangles, along with other paper shapes, onto the sheet.

Shields’s finished print, with its tactile surfaces, variable woven elements, and appliqué, repudiates the notion that silkscreens should be flat and editions should be uniform. Shields said that he wanted to make a print that would be “a lot more personal than most of the prints being made at the time.” [2]

Notes:
[1] Howardena Pindell, “Tales of Brave Ulysses: Alan Shields,” The Print Collector’s NewsletterV, no. 6 (January–February 1975), 138, and Ronny Cohen, Alan J. Shields: Print Retrospective. Exhibition catalogue. (Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, 1986), 9.
[2] Cohen, Alan J. Shields, 11.
ProvenanceTo 1983
Barbara B. Millhouse, New York, NY and Winston-Salem, NC. [1]

From 1983
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by Barbara B. Millhouse on December 29, 1983. [2]

Notes:
[1] Deed of Gift, object file.
[2] See note 1.
Exhibition History1976
Twentieth Century American Print Collection opening
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (12/3/1976)

2016-2018
Off the Wall: Postmodern Art at Reynolda
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (12/3/2016-6/11/2018)
Published References

Status

Not on view

Collections