Bruce Conner: Seeing is an Experience

Bruce Conner held conflicting ideas about authorship. His prints from the early 1970s revel in a profuse freedom of expression even as they deny a singular, defining outlook. Conner’s felt-tip pen drawings were often completed in one sitting and marked both lines as well as quantities of uninterrupted time. The prints, by contrast, were made quickly and relatively cheaply using a commercial printing process. Over the last fifty years, some of Conner’s ink drawings have faded, while the offset lithographic prints have endured with their full, saturated color. Looking closely at the marks on the prints, viewers sometimes find themselves entranced and believe that they are communing with the artist in a meditative state. However, Conner described his process like that of a novelist. The artist claimed that he would make various marks by imagining different characters with unique points of view that were scrawling on the page.  

Special thanks to the Conner Family Trust for their generous donation of twenty offset lithographic prints to our permanent collection.  

Square image: Bruce Conner, #125, 1971, offset lithograph on paper. Collection of the UK Art Museum, gift of the Conner Family Trust. 

Landscape image: Bruce Conner, #211 FUNNY MONEY, 1970, offset lithograph on paper. Collection of the UK Art Museum, gift of the Conner Family Trust.