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Untitled

1968

James McCracken, Jr.

(American, 1942–2017)
Culture
America
Medium
color screenprint with monotype
Measurements
Image: 23.5 x 26.6 cm (9 1/4 x 10 1/2 in.); Sheet: 23.5 x 29 cm (9 1/4 x 11 7/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of John B. Davidson 2025.11
Copyright
Copyright
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print
?

Did You Know?

John McCracken Jr. is little known today in part because he did not offer his works for sale to the public during his lifetime.

Description

A native of Lakewood, Ohio, the little-known artist John McCracken Jr. worked primarily on paper in a style influenced by the art of the Surrealists. Imaginative compositions such as the one seen here—which presents a monstrous, wilting plant rising out of a dense foreground populated with vines, roots, and biomorphic forms—recall dreams and the subconscious. McCracken worked in a precise, linear style that led Alfred H. Barr Jr.—an esteemed historian of modern art and the founding director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art—to describe him as “the new Dürer.”
A horizontally oriented color screenprint with monotype features fluid, overlapping shapes in vibrant lime and moss green against a dark background. A broad, translucent form sweeps diagonally from the upper left. To our right, a tall, wavy shape reaches upward, while a third rounded form sits in the lower left. These organic shapes display marbled patterns with yellow and blue streaks. A white inscription reads JMC in the lower corner to our right.

Untitled

1968

James McCracken, Jr.

(American, 1942–2017)
America

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