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September 5, 1912 - August 12, 1992
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In the words of the late Carl Solway, "No one was more influential in helping to shape both my personal life and my professional career than John Cage. His thinking influenced and expanded the nature of music, dance, painting and our perception of both art and life."
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Not Wanting To Say Anything About Marcel, Plexigram III, 1969, 8 panels of Plexiglas each in a walnut base, 14.5 x 24 x 14.5 inches
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The friendship between Carl Solway and John Cage began in 1968, when he was an artist-in-residence at the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati. Their association led to the publication in 1969 of Cage's first visual graphic works titled Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel, consisting of eight editioned sculptural objects called Plexigrams and two lithographs. These early works, created in tribute to Marcel Duchamp, are included in museums and private collections worldwide.
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Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel, Lithograph A, 1969, Color lithograph, Edition of 125, 28 x 40 inches, Framed: 32 x 40 inches
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Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel, Lithograph B, 1969, Color lithograph, Edition of 125, 28 x 40 inches, Framed: 32 x 40 inches
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Throughout the remaining 23 years of his life, Cage continued to produce prints, drawings and multiples, often incorporating the same notions of chance and unpredictability characteristic of his revolutionary approach to musical composition. In searching for ways to circumvent tradition and break new ground, he often derived the elements of his pieces and their formal compositions by consulting the I-Ching, the Chinese "Book of Changes", a numerical system with 64 possible outcomes.
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75 Stones, 1989, Etching and smoke, Edition of 25, Paper: 54 x 41 inches, Frame: 57 1/8 x 43 3/4 inches
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The Missing Stone, 1989, Etching and smoke, Edition of 25, Paper: 54 x 41 inches, Frame: 57 1/8 x 43 3/4 inches
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In the spring of 1990, at the Mountain Lake Workshop in Blacksburg, Virginia, Cage explored the relationships between his printmaking and his painting. Cage's most recent etchings from Crown Point Press involved printing "stone" imagery on papers that had been marked with amorphous burn patterns of fire and smoke. These indeterminate, naturalistic effects were analogous to his watercolor washes and wet brushwork. Together, these approaches recalled the four elements proposed by the pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles: earth, air, fire, and water.
The I-Ching would be asked to determine as many as six internal vertical divisions or "panels" along the horizontal width of each painting… Cage's method of determining the vertical placement of the stones on the panels-including provision for the possibility that images of the stones would be "invisible"- was a variant on the theme of continuity and division… (Excerpts from “The Sight of Silence: John Cage’s Complete Watercolors” by Ray Kass)
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River Rocks and Smoke 4/9/90 #1, 1990, Watercolor on Bee #944, 72” wide roll, paper prepared with fire and smoke, two stones from New River Valley, 72 x 47 ¾ inches, unframed, 78 x 54 x 3 inches, framed
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Passions for studying Zen Buddhism, playing chess and hunting for mushrooms informed Cage's life throughout his career. Marcel Duchamp was his most influential chess partner, but this highly strategic game also proved to be an important connection for Carl Solway. To quote him, "Numerous times, we played chess in my gallery on Saturdays. I always lost. John consoled me by saying that when he played with Marcel he always lost. Then John laughed with his famous and frequent joyous outburst.”
John Cage facilitated Carl's introduction to many innovative artists prominent in the 1960s and 1970s. Working relationships subsequently developed with Richard Hamilton, Buckminster Fuller, Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, Allan Kaprow and Ben Patterson, among many others.
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