IMPORTANT WORKS BY:

JESS (b. Jess Collins Long Beach, CA 1923, d. San Francisco 2004)
The Chariot: Tarot VII, 1962
Paste-Up

A: visible image, what you can see of the collage: c. 50 x 31 3⁄4 inches.
B: implied image (under the beige liner): c. 52 x 33 3⁄4 inches.
C: framed image (including orange cloth frame): c. 52 1⁄2 x 35 1⁄2 x 1 3⁄4 deep.
D: UV-3 Plexiglas-box: 58 1⁄4 x 40 1⁄4 x 4 deep.

Provenance:
Acquired directly from the artist.
Private Collection, North Carolina

Exhibited:
Jess: Paste-Ups (and Assemblies) 1951-1983 John & Mabel Ringling Museum, Sarasota 1983 illus in color p. 67 traveled to: Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach
Jess: A Grand Collage 1951-1993 organized by Michael Auping Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo September 12 to October 31, 1993 traveled to:
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Nov. 20, 1993 - January 23, 1994
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art February 24 thru April 24, 1994
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston May 21 thru August 21, 1994
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Sept. 22 thru December 4, 1994

Literature:
Auping, Michael JESS: A Grand Collage 1951-1993 Cat no. 61 Illus in color p. 197

Notes:
In addition to its size, complexity and presence, "The Chariot" is also a milestone: it is Jess's first major
Paste-Up where he uses color extensively in combination with his Ernst inspired works in black and
white: it is widely recognized as the key work in this transition when Jess begins to recognize the potential of his Paste-Ups to be major works of art in their own right able to hold their own with large paintings and then some. This is the moment when he moves from fascinating but small-scale collages, often used for illustrations in his friends' books of poetry, to the big time. As you know Jess made very few of his very personal Tarot works to begin with.

Biographical Summary:
Calling himself simply Jess after a break with his family in the late 1940s, Mr. Collins played an important, even defining role in the late 20th century Bay Area art scene. Born Burgess Collins in Long Beach, he studied chemistry before being drafter into the military. As a radio-chemist with the Army Corps of Engineers, he had a small part in the Manhattan Project to develop the first atom bomb. In 1948, a gruesome nightmare of the world destroying itself led Mr. Collins to renounce science for what he saw as more constructive pursuits. A year later, he enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute (Clyfford Still, David Park, Hassel Smith).
Despite the influences of the major painters at the time, Jess evolved his own enigmatic style creating “translations”, lushly painted recomposed images borrowed from children’s books and old science texts. Their meaning remains often tantalizing obscure.

Public Collections:
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Art Institute of Chicago, IL
Dallas Museum of Art, TX
Des Moines Art Center, Iowa
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA
Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Krannert Museum, Champaign, IL
Metropolitan Museum , New York
Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Museum of Modern Art, New York
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Philadelphia Museum, PA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA
University Art Museum, Berkeley, CA
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York