Vintage 90s Kurt Vonnegut Self Portrait #3 Midway College Presents Lecture T Shirt, 1993⁣⁣⁣

⁣⁣⁣This vintage KV shirt being site specific, super limited and w/ such a cool connection to Kurt’s art in the last fifteen years of hi life make this a truly rare collectors piece.

Vonnegut’s two color Self Portrait #3 in thick rich inks. Made in conjunction w/ a fundraiser for construction of a new library at Midway College in Lexington, KY. On November 1, 993 Vonnegut gave a lecture entitled “How to Get a Job Like Mine,” It also happens to mark the first project (the poster for this event) that paired Vonnegut w/ artist & master printer, Joe Petro III (Ralph Steadman/HST, Robert Rauschenberg, Christo, James Rosenquist, etc)⁣⁣⁣ who went on to work w/ KV on over 200 editions of his art.

Tag: FOTL Best⁣⁣

Marked Size: L⁣⁣⁣ (21” x 29”)

Condition: Excellent vintage, appears deadstock. No rips, holes, stains or tears (see photos)⁣⁣⁣

All vintage pieces vary in size. Please refer to measurements for accurate sizing

Any questions? Please feel free to message

By 1993, Vonnegut had been creatingI art most of his life with felt-tip pens and markers. Up until that point it had been a solitary pursuit. That would change w/ an introduction to Kentucky-born artist and screen-printmaker, Joe Petro III, during the planning for a fundraising lecture at Midway College in Lexington, KY. From that moment, and until his passing in 2007, Vonnegut created art exclusively with Petro. Each piece hand-drawn or painted by Vonnegut, and hand-printed by Petro from his studio in Lexington the two created 200+ works during their partnership.⁣⁣⁣

“Vonnegut’s first use of the screen-printing process was for an edition featuring his quintessential self-portrait, a limited edition created and signed with his characteristic flair. The edition was donated to assist Midway College in their fundraiser for a new library building.” (Serigraphy, Celebrities, and Joe Petro III, Screenprinting Magazine March, 2004)

…

SS: “You’ve been drawing for four or five decades. But in the last decade you’ve been working with Joe Petro III, who’s from Lexington, Kentucky, on dozens of art-related projects. How did this come about?”

KV: “As I said, art was taboo when I was growing up. My father was full of self-pity. He was an architect. I would have liked to be an architect, but I believed my brother. My impulse was to make art anyway. Here I am. It was a wonderful break. Joe Petro said, “Why don’t we work together?” It was a wonderful thing to happen to me at the end of my life.

There’s a woman’s college in Lexington called Midway, and I spoke there once. Speaking was a big part of my business life. Mark Twain made more money speaking than he did from writing. Anyway, I did about six speeches in the fall and six in the spring. I quit that now. I was invited to Midway, and Joe Petro was there. He said, “Why don’t you do a self-portrait? I’ll make a silk-screen of it and we’ll use it as a poster.” So I did it. I got out there and I saw what he can do. He’s an artist, too. He was a zoology major in college. He does these beautifully detailed accurate pictures of nature for Greenpeace. Anyway, after I did the self-portrait he said, “Why don’t we keep going?” And so we did. It was a very welcome invitation.

It was without any expectation of doing anything with the picture. Joe Petro got me drawing commercially. Putting it on the web, making silk-screens based on drawings by me. If it hadn’t been for Joe, I wouldn’t be doing it now. So Joe made this happen and as I’ve said about him, he did the most wonderful thing for me — he gave me a job.” (Excerpt from: The Melancholia of Everything Completed: KURT VONNEGUT (1922-2007): Highlights, Stop Smiling Magazine; Issue 27: Ode to the Midwest)

Full Interview available here: http://stopsmilingonline.com/story_detail.php?id=794

In the Author’s Note to A Man Without a Country, Vonnegut pays tribute to Petro, his friend and collaborator, while describing more about their process: “Joe makes prints of some of [my work], one by one, color by color, by means of the time-consuming, archaic silk screen process, practiced by almost nobody else anymore: squeegeeing inks through cloths and onto paper. This process is so painstaking and tactile, almost balletic, that each print Joe makes is a painting in its own right.

“Our partnership’s name, Origami Express,” he continues, “is my tribute to the many-layered packages Joe makes for prints he sends for me to sign and number.”