Still Life No. 24
Tom Wesselmann, Early Still Lifes: 1962-1964, Newport Harbor Art Museum, Balboa, CA, December 9, 1970-January 10, 1971, Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO, February 12-March 14, 1971, no. 3.
America as Art, National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian, Washington, DC, 1976, p. 300.
Representations of America,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Puskin Museum, Moscow, December 15,
1977-February 15, 1978, Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, March 15-May 15, 1978,
Palace of Art, Minsk, June 15-August 15, 1978.
Blam! The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism, and Performance 1958-1964, Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York, September 19-December 2, 1984.
‘Made in U.S.A.’, University Art
Museum, University of California, Berkley, April 4-June 21, 1987, The
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, July 25-September 6, 1987,
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, October 7-December 7, 1987, no. 108.
ICONS OF POP, Museum of Art and Archeology, University of Missouri, Columbia, January 23-June 27, 1999, no cat.
Still Life No. 24 is an assemblage composed of two-dimensional imagery and three-dimensional objects. Wesselmann cut images of foodstuffs and kitchen items from subway posters and other large advertisements. The plastic ear of corn is an advertising prop, acquired by the artist from a vendor on Coney Island who sold corn on the cob.
The blue curtain is of the type pictured in magazines such as Ladies' Home Journal, which promoted interior design to the middle class. Through the window, a sailboat glides along, further suggesting the good life of the American dream.
Consigned by the artist to Green Gallery, New York, 1962;
Purchased from the artist, through Green Gallery, by Mr. Charles F. (d. 1964) and Mrs. Susan (d. 1965) Buckwalter, Shawnee Mission, KS, 1962-1965;
Purchased from Susan Buckwalter’s estate, through the Henri
Gallery, Washington, DC, by the Guild of the Friends of Art, 1966 [1];
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1966.
NOTES:
[1] Archives of American Art, Washington, DC, Henri Gallery Records, box 10, folder 6.
Thomas H. Garver, Tom Wesselman, Early Still Lifes: 1962-1964 (Newport Beach: Newport Harbor Art Museum, 1970): no. 3.
Ellen Goheen, “From Romaticsm to Pop” Apollo,
vol. 96, 5th ed., 1973, 211, (repro.).
Ross E. McKenna and George L. Taggart, Handbook, Nelson Gallery of Art, Atkins Museum: Kansas City Volume 1 (Kansas
City: The William Nelson Trust, 1973): 211, (repro.).
Joshua C. Taylor, America as Art
(Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1976): 299, 300 (repro.).
Slim Stealingworth, Tom Wesselman
(New York; Cross River Press, 1980): 115, (repro.).
Barbara Haskell, Blam! The
Explosion of Pop, Minimalism, and Performance 1958-1964 (New York, London:
W.W. Norton and Company, 1984): 160.
Jill Wacker, “’Blam!’ captures Pop art’s bitter satire” Columbia Daily Spectator, October 15,
1984, (repro.).
Sylvianne Gold, “The ‘60s pop explosion: A real blast” USA Today, September 21, 1984, (repro.).
Sidra Stich, Made in U.S.A.: An
Americanization in Modern Art, the ‘50s and ‘60s (Oakland: University of
California Press, 1987): 107, (repro.).
Donald Hoffman, “’Made in U.S.A.’ A tyranny of trivia” The Kansas City Star, Sunday, August 2, 1987,
1D, (repro.).
Bil Tatum, “Show Organizer: Time was right for research” Springfield New Leader, Sunday, August 2, 1987, 1.
The Amicus Journal, Spring
1988: 27, (repro.).
Deborah Emont Scott, ed. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 218, (repro.).
