Lot 264: CAMILLE BILLOPS (1933 - ) For Japanese With Mirrors.

CAMILLE BILLOPS (1933 - )
For Japanese With Mirrors.

Color etching and aquatint, 1996. 405x305 mm; 16x12 inches, full margins. Artist's proof, from the edition of 75. Signed, titled, inscribed "A.P." and numbered 9/75 in pencil, lower margin. A very good impression.

This print is included in the collection of the Library of Congress and was exhibited in the exhibition Creative Space: Fifty Years of Robert Blackburn's Printmaking Workshop, with the following description: "versatile artist Camille Billops, also known as cofounder of the Hatch-Billops Archives of Black American Cultural History in New York, created multiple versions of this work, including one in red, white, and blue. Combining image and text to explore notions of race, identity, and nationalism, Billops includes a reverse image of a Japanese poem which begins: "The blue-eyed black face and the slant-eyed kinky-haired/ dancing between gardens of racial purity; eating sushi and corn bread and listening to funky koto music. . . ."