Ubu Roi-Programme du Theatre de l'Oeuvre

Alfred Jarry

1873–1907

Ubu Roi-Programme du Theatre de l'Oeuvre, 1896

Where object was made: France

Material/technique: wove paper; lithograph

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 247 x 325 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 247 x 325 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 9 3/4 x 12 13/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 16 x 20 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Letha Churchill Walker Memorial Art Fund

Accession number: 1989.0016

Not on display

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Exhibition Label:
"Printed Art and Social Radicalism," Jun-2002, Stephen Goddard
Jarry’s epochal play about human greed, cowardice, and stupidity, Ubu Roi (King Ubu), emerged from the presses on June 11 and premiered at the Théâtre de l’Oeuvre on December 10, 1896. The woodcut frontispiece for Ubu Roi is the best-known print by Jarry. It shows Ubu, with pointed head, spiral gut, and his physic-stick (bâton-à-physique), who became a symbol of ignorance and evil that has had a remarkably tenacious existence in the twentieth century. While Jarry cultivated a stance of political indifference, his revolutionary ideas challenged many assumptions about society and existence, and he has been understood as heralding the nihilist Dada movement and the theater of the absurd. In this lithographic announcement by Jarry for the performance of Ubu Roi, King Ubu appears as a shadow puppet with a segmented arm. He brandishes a dreadful, serrated scimitar in one hand and clutches a sack of gold in the other pincer-like hand.