21 Mar Man Ray and David Hockney alphabets at Eames Fine Art

Eames Fine Art presents a whimsical exhibition of abecedary by David Hockney and Man Ray from Wednesday 20 March. In 1948 Man Ray was commissioned by the Copley Galleries in California – who had hosted the artist’s solo exhibition earlier the same year – to produce an album of lithographs based on letters from the alphabet. This wonderful series of 37 quirky and surreal images (more than one for some letters), printed by the master lithographer Linton R. Kistler, are the result.

Published in 1991 to raise money for the Aids Crisis Trust, Hockney’s Alphabet pairs 26 alphabetical illustrations by David Hockney with written contributions from some of the most distinguished writers of the late twentieth century including Iris Murdoch, Ted Hughes, Arthur Miller, Doris Lessing, Seamus Heaney and Ian McEwan, edited by Stephen Spender. All the contributors agreed to write something, with the exception of Norman Mailer (‘F’), whose letter of refusal was included anyway as ‘a good model of Polite Rejection’.  You can read the texts on the Eames website alongside each letter.

Eames Fine Art Gallery is at 58 Bermondsey Street SE1 3UD. More here http://www.eamesfineart.com