Alfred Jensen, Untitled from the Deluxe Artists & Collaborators Edition of the One Cent Life portfolio (Hand signed), 1964

Alfred Jensen

Untitled (Deluxe Artists & Collaborators Edition of the One Cent Life portfolio), 1964

Color lithograph on two pages wove paper (from the Artists & Collaborators hand signed edition of 1 Cent Life Portfolio, Estate of the artist Robert Indiana)

Hand signed on the front; numbered 85 on the colophon page a copy of which is affixed to the back of the frame -see photo

This iconic 1964 Alfred Jensen lithograph, splayed across two separate pages, is from the Deluxe, hand signed edition of only 100 of the legendary 1 Cent Life Portfolio - one of the most important and celebrated artistic collaborations of the 1960s. Provenance is excellent as this was part of the complete Deluxe (signed) portfolio acquired from the estate of Pop Artist Robert Indiana;
(There was also an unsigned edition of 2000)

Chinese American artist and writer Walasse Ting, in collaboration with Sam Francis, assembled a group of the most significant Pop and Abstract Expressionist artists in America, including Andy Warhol, along with the European COBRA artists to create the definitive artistic portfolio of lithographs with accompanying text by Walasse Ting. The Deluxe edition, which features hand signed prints, was published in a limited edition of only 100. This is one of them. Of the 100, editions numbered 60-100, or 40 portfolios, were reserved exclusively for Artists & Collaborators. This hand signed Alfred Jensen lithograph is from the portfolio numbered 85 (Artists & Collaborators), which was acquired from the Estate and Collection of Robert Indiana, another one of the artists who contributed to the 1 Cent Life portfolio. (Again, the work is pencil signed by Alfred Jensen on the front and, this, like all of the prints in 1 Cent Life are unnumbered, as the complete portfolio is numbered on the colophon page - a copy of which is affixed to the back of this frame for provenance.) It is elegantly floated and framed in a museum frame with UV plexiglass with Optium museum plexiglass - the highest quality available.

Signed examples of this portfolio with such superb provenance rarely appear on the marketplace. This is a true collectors item, from the most desirable and influential era in Pop Art history.

Published by E.W. Kornfeld, Germany, Written by Walasse Ting, Edited by Sam Francis

Provenance: Acquired from original, complete 1 Cent Life Portfolio, # 85/100 (Artists & Collaborators) from the Estate and Collection of Robert Indiana

Measurements:
Framed on Optium Museum Tru-Vue Plexiglass:
20.25 x 27 x 1.5 inches
Print:
16 x 22.5 inches

More about the Signed (Deluxe) Edition of 1 Cent Life portfolio
In 1962, the Chinese-American artist Walasse Ting shared his dream project with painter Sam Francis: to create an anthology of his poetry illustrated by leading artists of their time. Over the next two years, Ting and Francis recruited leading Abstract Expressionists and Pop artists—Andy Warhol, Joan Mitchell, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Indiana, James Rosenquist, Mel Ramos, Claes Oldenburg and Roy Lichtenstein, among them, along with the European COBRA artists, like Asger Jorn, Karel Appel and Pierre Alechinsky —to create prints for their collaborative publication, which they playfully titled 1¢ Life. Published in 1964 by E. W. Kornfeld in Switzerland in an edition of 2,000 books, 1¢ Life features 62 color lithographs by a total of 28 iconic artists, including colorful lips by Warhol, abstract splatters by Mitchell, and cartoon girls by Lichtenstein. The accompanying many of these Pop Art prints are the poems of Walasse Ting - racy and avant garde for the early 1960s. The lithography was executed by Maurice Beaudet, of Paris. Complete examples of 1¢ Life can be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum and many other public and private institutions around the globe. Today, 1 Cent Life is considered one of the best artist's books ever created- coming out of one of the most influential decades in modern art.

Apart from the familiar regular edition of 2000, only 100 of these lithographic portfolios were hand signed by the artists (the Robert Indiana being stamped with his official stamp), and of those only 40 were reserved for Artists and Collaborators, numbered 60 through 100. (The present work, being # 85/100)

Most lithographs are printed on two separate pages. This famed portfolio was produced and assembled by Chinese-American-European artist Walasse Ting in conjunction with American artist Sam Francis, Swiss publisher E.W. Kornfeld, and French printer Maurice Beaudet - a truly global endeavor. The portfolio, featuring some of the most recognizable lithographs of the era, was the result of an unprecedented, ambitious international collaboration between American Pop Artists of the Sixties and the European COBRA artists.