Writing a Chrysanthemum: The Drawings of Rick Barton is the first exhibition to highlight the life and work of the artist Rick Barton, an active member of San Francisco’s bohemian art scene in the 1950s and 60s. Containing numerous drawings, print portfolios, and accordion style sketchbooks, the exhibition will unfold over across four thematic groupings, inspired by the artist’s personal preoccupations. Writing a Chrysanthemum will contain self-portraits and drawings of places important to Barton’s artistic career; drawings that captures the personal spaces Barton inhabited in the late 1950s and early 1960s; works that delve into Barton’s affinity for religion and its rituals; and a selection of Barton’s carefully observed drawings of fish, plants, flowers, birds, and other creatures.
Writing a Chrysanthemum: The Drawings of Rick Barton
Rick Barton, Untitled sketchbook, [detail], 1962. Brush and ink on accordion-folded book. 28 panels, 11 × approx. 231 in. unfolded. Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Libraries. Photo by Tom O’Connell.
Rick Barton, Untitled [Signature self-portrait], 1961. Pen and ink, 8 × 5 1/4 in. Rick Barton papers, UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Rick Barton, Untitled [Bed with reclining figure and musicians], 1962. Pen and ink, 9 1/4 × 12 1/2 in. Rick Barton papers, UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Rick Barton, Untitled [Interior with fishbowls and map], February 5, 1962. Pen and ink, 22 3/4 × 15 3/8 in. Rick Barton papers, UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Rick Barton, Untitled [Inmates reading], 1959. Pen and ink, 10 1/4 × 14 1/2 in. Rick Barton papers, UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Rick Barton, Barcelona, August 28, 1962. Pen and ink with graphite, 10 1/4 × 14 1/2 in. Rick Barton papers, UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Rick Barton, Untitled [Inmates], 1959. Red and blue ballpoint pen, 10 1/4 × 14 1/2 in. Rick Barton papers, UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
“The Warhol Foundation aims to support the full range of artistic activity in America—from exhibitions at major museums to neighborhood projects by artist collectives. Arts writers, through the range and specialization of their individual interests, touch upon all of this activity—illuminating and interrogating it and bringing it into conversation with the public. Support for artists is not complete without support for the circulation and serious consideration of their ideas. The Arts Writers Grant program keeps artists at the center of cultural dialogue and debate—in our opinion, right where they belong.”
Joel Wachs, President