Paste-ups
Jess’s earliest collages, which he preferred to call “paste-ups” for the association with childlike play, date from 1951. Combining magazine illustrations, comic strips, engravings, Tarot cards, and eventually puzzle pieces, the paste-ups grow more complex with time, the later examples containing hundreds or even thousands of fragments. Visual and verbal puns organize the intricacies, as the viewer’s attention is drawn inward to Jess’s constellations of myth and imagination.
The Mouse’s Tale
1951, gelatin silver prints, magazine reproductions, and gouache on paper;
47 5/8 x 32 inches
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Gift of Frederic P. Snowden
Untitled (with Jean Cocteau)
1952 – 1953, paste-up, 16 x 10 inches
Untitled (with Nijinsky)
1952 – 1953, paste-up, 17.75 x 23.25 inches
Untitled (Lean Mouth for Hours)
1953, paste-up, 10.75 x 8.25 inches
Blasted Beauty
1954, collage, 30 x 24 inches
Untitled (Car and Male Nude)
Not dated, collage, 12 x 8 inches
Goddess…..because……because
c. 1954, paste-up, 14 x 13.5 inches
Untitled (Opera Witch) Illustration for “Caesar’s Gate” series
1955, collage, 4.75 x 6.75 inches
Untitled (Cars on Rooftop), Illustration for Caesar’s Gate, “Moving in Your Sights”
1955, paste-up, 8.5 x 6.25 inches
Untitled (Konrad Lorenz)
c. 1955, paste-up, 16 x 10 inches
Tricky Cad: Case V
1958, Newspaper, cellulose acetate film, black tape, fabric, and paper on paperboard,
13 1/4 x 24 15/16 inches
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution
Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 1989, Photograph by Cathy Carver
Tricky Cad: Case V (detail)
The Sun: Tarot XIX
1960, Collage of cut papers (color lithographs) on paper, with window shade pull
75.5 x 45.75 inches
Philadelphia Museum of Art: Purchased with the SmithKline Beckman Corporation Fund, 1984
Hera Closing With Herakles
1960, collage, 19.5 x 23.5
Echo’s Wake Part VI
1961-1966, paste-up, 10.25 x 14.5 inches
The Chariot: Tarot VII
1962, paste-up, 51 x 33 inches
The Chariot: Tarot VII (detail)
Jess, Paste-Ups by Jess
1967, printed reproduction, text, and paper on paper; 22 in. x 28 in. (55.88 cm x 71.12 cm); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Purchase in memory of Edith Bransten
The Napoleonic Geometry of Art—Given: The Pentagon in the Square; Demonstrate: the Hyperbolic Swastika”
1968, collage and diverse materials, 43 x 37 inches
Paste-ups by Jess
1971, collage, 22 x 28 inches
The Unentitled Graces
1978, collage, 37 x 57 inches, Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Xrysxrossanthemums
1978, collage, 19.5 x 23.75 inches, Tibor de Nagy Gallery
Sent on the VIIth Wave
1979, collage and mixed media, 39 x 33 inches
Sent on the VIIth Wave (detail 1)
Sent on the VIIth Wave (detail 2)
![Jess Collins paste-up "A Cryogenic Consideration: Or, Sounding One Horn Of The Dilemma [Winter]"](https://jesscollins.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Jess-a-cryogenic-consideration-or-sounding-one-horne-dilemma-winter-1980-collage-48x72-in.jpg)
A Cryogenic Consideration: Or, Sounding One Horn Of The Dilemma [Winter]
1980, collage, 48 x 72 inches
![Jess Collins paste-up A Cryogenic Consideration: Or, Sounding One Horn Of The Dilemma [Winter]" (detail 1)](https://jesscollins.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Jess-a-cryogenic-consideration-or-sounding-one-horne-dilemma-winter-detail-1.jpg)
A Cryogenic Consideration: Or, Sounding One Horn Of The Dilemma [Winter] (detail 1)
![Jess Collins paste-up A Cryogenic Consideration: Or, Sounding One Horn Of The Dilemma [Winter]" (detail 2)](https://jesscollins.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Jess-a-cryogenic-consideration-or-sounding-one-horne-dilemma-winter-detail-2.jpg)
A Cryogenic Consideration: Or, Sounding One Horn Of The Dilemma [Winter] (detail 2)
Quondam Quiddities
1982, paste up on paper, 40 x 18 inches
Quondam Quiddities (detail 1)
Quondam Quiddities (detail 2)
Quondam Quiddities (detail 3)
A Western Prospect of Egg and Dart
1988, Photomechanical reproductions and jigsaw puzzle parts mounted on foamcore board, 56 1/4 x 79 3/4 inches, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution Gift of the Marion L. Ring Estate, by Exchange, 1989 Photograph by Lee Stalsworth
Emblems for Robert Duncan II, #4
1989, collage, 4.25 x 6 inches, Tibor de Nagy Gallery
Emblems for Robert Duncan II, #7
1989, collage, 4.25 x 6 inches, Tibor de Nagy Gallery
Narkissos
1976-1991, drawing/graphite on paper and paste-up, 70 x 60 inches, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Purchase through gifts of Phyllis C. Wattis, Elaine McKeon, Judy and John Webb, Bobbie and Michael Wilsey, Jean and Jim Douglas, Susan and Robert Green, Pat and Bill Wilson, and the Accessions Committee Fund: gift of Frances and John Bowes, Shawn and Broo
Narkissos (detail 1)
Narkissos (detail 2)
Narkissos (detail 3)
Banish Pericles
1993, mixed media collage, 9.125 x 10.5 inches