Buying a Ticket on the Ship of Fools

James Dean Pruner

1951–1987 or 1988

Buying a Ticket on the Ship of Fools, 1984

Portfolio/Series title: Man as Machine

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: lithograph

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 230 x 152 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 357 x 287 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 9 1/16 x 6 0.98425 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 14 1/16 x 11 5/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 19 x 14 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Lucy Shaw Schultz Fund

Accession number: 1991.0048.05

Not on display

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Archive Label 2003 (version 1): After studying art at Fort Hays State University in the early 1970s, Pruner became an independent artist based at his Stafford County farm. Pruner’s Man as Machine portfolio recounts his experiences with street people and civic authorities while he was on the road in Los Angeles in 1983. The portfolio was printed at Lawrence lithography Workshop. Pruner has become something of a cult figure in Kansas, due in part to his reclusive lifestyle and mysterious death in 1987. Archive Label 2003 (version 2): After studying art at Fort Hays State University in the early 1970s, Pruner became an independent artist based at his Stafford County, Kansas, farm. Pruner’s Man as Machine portfolio recounts his experiences with street people and civic authorities while he was on the road in Los Angeles in 1983 Exhibition Label: "A Kansas Arts Sampler", Oct-2004, Kate Meyer In the series Man as Machine, Pruner critiques the flaws and foibles found in contemporary society. In Buying a Ticket on the Ship of Fools, the radiant triangle inscribed upon the raised palm of the ticket taker’s booth seems to suggest the almighty dollar and a life of hollow power that the man eagerly seeks to pursue.