Details:
① Artwork:
Aphorisms
Aphorisms is the last poem that Jesse Murry wrote, during the final days of his life in 1993. This handset edition—designed and letterpress printed by Rory Sparks and including the marks and lines from Murry's original draft—consists of 11 pages of the poem, a portrait of the artist, and a colophon, all within a portfolio constructed from handmade, debossed paper. 100% of proceeds will benefit the Jesse Murry Foundation.
Murry first wrote the poem by hand in the hospital while unable to speak, asking his partner George to recite it back to him, and for nearly 30 years, nobody else knew of its existence. In 2021, the handwritten pages of the poem were discovered by writer and curator Jarrett Earnest while doing research for an exhibition of Murry's late oil paintings, Rising, at David Zwirner New York.
The edition was commissioned and produced by Stephanie Snyder, curator of the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College. With special thanks to Lisa Yuskavage for her advisory role on this project and her lifelong support of Jesse Murry’s legacy.
Specs:
③ Artist:
Born in North Carolina, the artist and poet Jesse Murry (1948–1993) studied art and philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College before moving to New York City in 1979. Fusing the Romantic painting tradition of John Constable and J. M. W. Turner with the quality of mind and imagination of Wallace Stevens’s poetry, Murry uniquely sought to create a “landscape” within the fiction of painting that could be “more than a place to dwell but a suitable space for dreams.”
Murry’s essays on artists including Hans Hofmann and Howard Hodgkin appeared in a range of publications, including Arts Magazine. After two years of teaching art history and exhibiting at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Murry enrolled in the Yale School of Art at the age of thirty-six.
Murry died in 1993 of complications from HIV/AIDS. In 2021, an exhibition of his late paintings, Rising, debuted at David Zwirner New York before traveling to the USF Contemporary Art Museum and the David F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College.
