Untitled, CLIR2023.544

Date

1989

Medium

Ink, crayon, and print cutout on mat board

Dimensions

18 × 11.5 in

Categories

DrawingspeoplePrints & MultiplesCrayonCollageInk

Visual description

In this piece by Dwight McIntosh, a smaller image is clipped from a magazine and pasted along the right side of the page. The inset image is in portrait orientation and takes up about one-sixth of the page. In the image, a man dressed in a brown and black, pinstripe suit, worn unbuttoned over a white shirt and a red necktie, stands barefoot with his back up against a railing. He faces forward with his head thrown back. His right foot is pointed on tiptoe near the ground, his left foot is pointed out towards the left gracefully, and his arms are outstretched to his sides. He gives the impression that he is in motion, perhaps dancing or singing. The background of the image is mostly black, however, a series of pale yellow rectangular windows and circular portholes extend into the darkness behind him. His left hand appears to be planted against a black and white organic shape on the right side of the image, perhaps a tree or a crashing wave that extends up and above the man. Behind the clipped magazine image, McIntosh depicts his own loosely inspired version. Using black ink, he draws a human figure in outline form, duplicating the stance of the man in the magazine image. This figure fills two-thirds of the vertical page and is placed to the left of the magazine image. The body is drawn facing left, his right arm outstretched with stubby fingers that form a hand. The right leg is placed to the right of the body, with the left leg stretched out and back, with toe planted as if walking. Many squiggly black lines on the head form hair, with eyebrows immediately above two large eyes that are touching in the middle of the face between two ears. Two red shapes outlined in black, one beneath each eye, indicate a sort of mouth or possibly rosy cheeks. More lines and circles are found on the upper torso that perhaps indicate a necktie, and multiple lines on the legs suggest movement. Unlike the background of the magazine image, Dwight McIntosh has filled the background of the paper behind the figure with a sky made of patches of blue. There are eight star-like shapes outlined in black and filled with a bright yellow, representing flowers or stars, that seem to float around the page. Finally, there is a single small black outlined star-like shape filled with orange on the left side of the man. A lawn of green fills the background of the lower half of the page, and within this lawn many numbers are handwritten in black ink.

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