Cicada

Tony Fitzpatrick, artist

born 1958

Big Cat Press, printer and publisher

Cicada, 2001

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: color etching; wove paper

Dimensions:
Plate Mark/Block Dimensions (Height x Width): 79 x 99 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 236 x 255 mm
Plate Mark/Block Dimensions (Height x Width): 3 1/8 x 3 7/8 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 9 5/16 x 10 1/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 11 x 14 in

Credit line: Gift of Tony Fitzpatrick

Accession number: 2001.0069.10

Not on display

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Images

Label texts

Inked Bodies

These 10 works by Tony Fitzpatrick, inspired by children’s books, folk art, and Chicago street culture, reference flash sheets, an essential part of modern American tattooing. Tattoo artists often display an assortment of pre-drawn icons either in a notebook or on the walls of their shop for customers to choose from. Although today many artists have transitioned to larger and more customized designs, flash tattooing is still common.

Archive Label 2003: Each of Tony Fitzpatrick’s bugs (Jewell Bug, Dancing Bug, Lopea, Green Bug, Caterpillar, Grasshopper, Harlequin, Wonder Bug, Ladybug, and Cicada) crawls on top of a neon-bright circus atmosphere and is surrounded by its own panoply of cartoon-like characters. The bugs and their human companions live in a doodled thicket of crossword puzzle squares, dice, playing cards, decals, insignia, and tattoos. This series of extraordinary four-color etchings by this “bigger than life” draftsman and printmaker is a continuation of his work in series that are scribbled quickly and that fill each small page elaborately. Created with the precision of a tattooer’s craft, Fitzpatrick’s colorful, and sometimes threatening, imagery is drawn from Chicago street life, childhood encounters with Roman Catholic icons, field guides, tattoo designs, folk art, children’s books and circus posters. Fitzpatrick is a self-taught artist, former prizefighter, published poet, stage and movie actor, radio talk-show host, designer of award-nominated album covers, former operator of World Tattoo Gallery in Chicago, and co-founder of Big Cat Press there. He has a remarkable gift for imagery that is a mesmerizing blend of technical proficiency and soul. Exhibition Label: "Cabinets of Curiosity: Musing About Collections," Jun-2006, Joseph Keehn and Madeline Rislow Tony Fitzpatrick has done many print series that have interesting correlations with printed series and cycles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These include series of birds, flowers, insects, and an alphabet. Like Hoefnagel’s images of insects and other natural forms of 1592 that are accompanied with moralizing texts (also exhibited here), Fitzpatrick interlaces his prints with background images that consider human motives and behaviors through the wisdom of “street smarts.” Exhibition Label: "Sum of the Parts: Recent Works on Paper," Jun-2001, Stephen Goddard Early printmaking has many connections with the human impulse to catalogue and organize knowledge. For example, in the field of natural history prints were often used to carefully record taxonomic details. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were many sets of prints dedicated to botanical specimens, insects, and shells. Some of this encyclopedic impulse still animates Fitzpatrick's wonderful color etchings of insects, but the lexicon is now sreet-wise and includes bits of graffitti and tattoo art.