Gallery label from POP! Selections from the Collection, May 3 - July 31, 2014

The large format of this four-part work and many other prints by Rosenquist is reminiscent of the artist’s days as a billboard painter, first in Minneapolis and later in New York. The stylistic alternations between tromp-l’oeil precision, both hard- and soft-edge abstraction, and decorative patterns form a complex, collage-like composition with a highly compelling narrative. Like many of his Pop colleagues, Rosenquist appropriated imagery from media, commercial, and fine art sources alike. Individual elements, such as a Firestone tire, a picture-perfect young girl sitting in a beauty parlor hair-dryer chair, and what has come to be known as Rosenquist’s signature spaghetti fields (after photographs taken by fellow artist and Phillips Academy alumnus Hollis Frampton), allude to themes of industry and consumer culture, as well as beauty and innocence. Though created in the mid-1970s, this suite of prints was based on the artist’s 1964-65 homonymous set of panel paintings. The clearly legible phrase “U.S. Air Force” makes reference to the country’s global position of power at the height of the Cold War, rendering F-111 one of Rosenquist’s most politically overt pieces. The F-111 fighter plane, still in development when Rosenquist originally painted it, runs through the entire composition and comprises its main subject, lending the piece its title as well.

Kelley Tialiou
Charles H. Sawyer Curatorial Assistant | Librarian | Archivist