Cecily Brown (b. 1969)

Rose Tavern, The Arrest, and Chairing the Member, 2004

Etchings

Each plate: 8 ¾ × 11 ¾ inches

Each sheet: 16 ½ × 19 inches 

Printed and published by Two Palms, NY

Edition: 12

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Courtesy the artist and Two Palms, NY. © 2020 Cecily Brown

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Cecily Brown’s practice as a painter and printmaker is grounded in investigating the works of modern and historical masters, copying and deconstructing their images repeatedly as a method to guide close looking, formal inquiry, and revelation. In this rare group of etchings, Brown responds to works by the 18th century English printer, painter, and social critic William Hogarth. Brown mines Horgarth’s complex scenes of crowds: Rose Tavern and The Arrest are based on Hogarth’s cycle of engravings A Rake’s Progress; while Chairing the Member transforms a print from Four Humors of an Election. In Brown’s plates, Hogarth’s tight, theatrical compositions become approximations of space and form lingering between figuration and abstraction, nonetheless capturing the debauchery, conflict, and humor of the original moral narratives.