The Suitor

 

June Claire Wayne

  1918 - 2011 (biography)

1951  

lithograph 

27 5/8 x 7 7/8" image 

pencil, lower right 

8/35 plus 3 proofs 

Dec '51, in lr, titled, "Dear Don-How do you like these? June" in lower margin 

Conway 70; B.71; G.16 

ivory cover 

published 

artist 

10038 

$1,750.00 

The lithographs "The Suitor" and "The Bride" were drawn on the same stone, pulled on one sheet of paper, then cut apart to be hung with "The Advocate" as a triptych. The dedication to "Don" on this impression refers to Donald Bear (1905-1952), former director of Santa Barbara Museum. June Wayne worked with Los Angeles Master Printer Lynton Kistler on the triptych. Robert Conway notes in the entry in the catalogue raisonne for "The Suitor" (page 83): "All four figures are based on the same module, varied in each case to emphasize the character depicted. 'The Bride', as female employs an X chromosome; "The Suitor holds a phallic candle in his right hand and a crystal in his left..." "Wayne's interest in crystals came in part from working with gemstones as a designer in NY in the late 1930's, but also from the allegorical novel "The Green Child" by art historian Sir Herbert Reed. The crystaline grids sit within fields created by sprays of tusche." On the same page Wayne comments: "The stone for these two prints was so heavy that Kistler built a wood pallet with handles. shimmying it into my station wagon, whose shocks barely supported the load. Then I would give a dinner for at least four men whom I could con into dragging it up into the studio. When I finished the stone I gave another dinner. Kistler might etch and proof it the next day, but more likely it would take weeks to see a proof, so there was plenty of time for me to develop concurrently related paintings and drawings."