GALLERY

 

JOHNNY ACE

Johnny Ace, An American Genius.

I met Johnny Ace twenty years ago when I caught him stealing the battery from my car. Suffice to say that we developed a friendship based on our mutual interest in American pop culture in general and popular music in particular. I've watched his work evolve and I've come to know him as well as anyone can.

In 1954, Ace was released from prison in Oklahoma and migrated to St. Louis to resume his life as a pick-up player. That brought him into the emerging rock 'n' roll business. For the next decade he was consistently at its fringe. He worked with Little Richard, Larry Williams and The Del Vikings, although often only as a roadie.

Ace's technique is unusual, but sophomoric. He conceives a picture, decoupages the photos on a board and proceeds as if it were a coloring book. Everything but flesh gets painted and laminated with multiple coats of polyurethane, an effect that creates what one critic called "a Coney Island on acid" sense. As Ace says, "any fool can do it". In short, it is Ace's message, not the medium, that invites serious interest.

Ace is recognized as America's foremost photo surrealist, a genre he invented. He inhabits a universe somewhere between folk and pop art-much like The Lovin' Spoonful or The Mamas & The Papas, as Ace puts it. That ambiguity and the difficulty of matching his work with most sofas has kept his sales limited to a small but growing cult.

The Critics Speak:

"Women haven't been objectified like this since Ruebens. Johnny Ace is a pig."
Susan Sontag, Notes on Camp

"Gear. Fab. Johnny Ace is just like real rock 'n' roll. It's loud, dumb and mostly stolen from somebody else."
John Lennon

"Priscilla wants to sue him, but I like it. Thank you very much."
Elvis Presley

ENJOY!

"The epiphany of Blind Lemon Jefferson" Abandoned and dying on the streets of Chicago just before Christmas, 1930, Blind Lemon Jefferson saw a vision of what a powerful art his beloved blues would become. God will do that for a good harpman. 19" x 27" $700

THE GIPPER

15 x 16 $250

 

 

 

DECLAN MC MANUS AND ELVIS (Elvis Costello with Elvis Presley)

16 x 18" $300

THE EXCELLENT KARMA OF HUDDIE LEDBETTER

White people have always loved the blues and the story of Leadbelly is proof. He was pardoned twice by Southern governors who loved his music, first in Texas fro murder and then in LA for attempted murder. Cheerful people say it shows that music even in a racist society can bind men together. Cynics point out that Leadbelly only killed or attempted to kill other negroes. Leadbelly scratched it up to God's blessing. $550 19"x27"

JUST ANOTHER SATURDAY NIGHT MURDER IN THE DELTA ...Wherever he went there was always plenty of women to take care of Robert Johnson. That ended one night in August 1938 when a jealous husband poisoned his whiskey. Johnson died in agony four days later. I guess that's why they call it the blues. 19 x 27" $600

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