The Museum of Modern Art organized an exhibition of works on handmade paper, in 1976. Kathy Markel, one of my dealers at the time, called to tell me she was loaning one of my pieces to the exhibition. I was too busy with the Venturi renovation and addition to the Allen Art Museum to go see the show until toward the end.
A friend who often helped me in the studio, Walter Bosstick, was in New York about a month after the exhibition opened and reported back to me the following: “The piece they are showing is beautiful. It’s displayed in between a Jim Dine and a Robert Rauschenberg. But, you know, I thought I knew all your work and this one is very subtle.” I asked him to describe it, since I didn’t know which piece was selected. He did and I was really puzzled. It didn’t sound like my work! So, I asked how, other than by the label, he knew it was my work? “It has your signature right on it.” I was on the phone to MoMA as fast as I could dial. I explained to the curator that I signed my work on the back. By the time I arrived in New York the piece was properly presented. Yellow Fan had even been purchased by an art critic. My question is: which side did she pay for?
Fans may be found in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Princeton Art Museum, Phoenix Art Museum, and the General Mills Art collection.
Sandy Kinnee, Fans and Kimonos ARTSPACE, Winter 1981-82, vol.6, no 1
copyright 1981 Suzanne M. Singletary. click here for readable size ARTSPACE
