Gas-Up
One of a series of intricate prints titled with various hyphenated compound nouns, Gas-Up celebrates its multipart makeup. A layered lattice of grids, typical of Shields’s work and drawn from the geometry of 1960s Minimalism, amasses a thicket of pattern and texture. Shields was often associated with the 1970s Pattern and Decoration movement, which sought to democratize American art by aligning itself with various craft and decorative traditions. Visible machine stitching and dangling threads (skeletal cores of the paper pulp grids) echo Shields’s frequent use of a sewing machine to construct his work, while the stenciled and boldly colored patterning evokes an international vocabulary of textiles, such as the wax prints popular in West Africa.
Artwork Details
- Title: Gas-Up
- Artist: Alan Shields (American, Herington, Kansas 1944–2005 Shelter Island, New York)
- Date: 1984
- Medium: Collage of colored and printed handmade papers with paper pulp and embedded colored threads
- Edition: artist's proof 15/17 from an edition of 46 + 17 artist's proofs, 1 right to print, 1 printer's proof I, 1 printer's proof II, and 1 archive copy
- Dimensions: 56 7/8 × 40 15/16 × 3/4 in. (144.5 × 104 × 1.9 cm)
- Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Gift of Tyler Graphics Ltd., in honor of William S. Lieberman, 2003
- Object Number: 2003.433.121
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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