Eye Deal

Barbara Rossi is an accomplished printmaker known for extremely abstract depictions of human faces and bodies that she delineates with big sweeping lines and subtly modulated tonal areas. This 1974 lithograph is a good example of an abstract composition based on an image Rossi encountered, specifically a Persian miniature that depicts a Mughal emperor contemplating the portrait of a great ancestor. It is one of 12 trial proofs and, typical of Rossi’s experimental approach to materials, the proofs depict the same image printed with a rich variety of gorgeous inks on different textured supports: various papers, collaged layers, and fabrics. In this version the tiny black-on-white marks she drew on a fine-grained lithographic stone were printed on double chine collé of white “lace” paper over gold foil on ivory wove paper, to create a sparkling half-tone effect. She even created a version of Eye Deal painted in reverse with acrylics on Plexiglas. (See also 1996.34.)

Rossi studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the late 1960s and

like many other Chicago Imagist artists of her generation, she was much inspired by her teachers Ray Yoshida (1930‒2009) and Vera Berdich (1915-2003). (See 2011.13 and 1967.116.134.)