Triad X

Clinton Adams

Clinton Adams started his "Triad" series in 1979. In his essay in the catalogue raisonné,"A Meticulous Serenity" by Robert P. Conway, David Acton comments about the series on pages 44-45: "The image looks as if it were made of cut pieces of ...paper, glued together like Henri Matisse's 'papiers decoupées', then touched with lines in crayon or pastel...Adams developed these formal and symbolic concepts, numbering the works sequentially without regard to medium. Each image shares a collage-like triangle and a central vertical line."

Clinton Adams commented to cataloger Robert Conway about this image: "This is the best of the black and white 'Triads', done by the master printer in the shop at the time, Lynne Allen, a fine, fine printer. It was a tough challenge but she's very good."

Master Printer Lynne Allen commented:"Clinton was famous for using an extra hard, #5 litho crayon as a test of a printers ability to handle subtle gradations of black. I was intiminated at first - he had an aura of seriousness about him - but I treated him like any other artist, and that pleased him."