Jonny Hannah – Mr Gerry Mulligan – Signed Limited-Edition Screenprint 13/25 – 2008

Description

A large and particularly striking original screenprint by Jonny Hannah, entitled Mr Gerry Mulligan, dating from 2008 and celebrating the American jazz saxophonist and composer Gerry Mulligan.

The work measures 51.7 × 71.8 cm and was produced in a notably small edition of only 25 impressions. This example is number 13/25, signed by Jonny Hannah in pencil and dated 2008, with the Cakes & Ale Press imprint incorporated at the lower right-hand edge of the printed composition.

Hannah approaches Mulligan not through conventional portraiture but through an exuberant assemblage of clothing, shoes, typography, musical references and fragments of jazz history. A pale-blue jacket and tie dominate the centre of the composition, surrounded by hand-rendered text, a shoe, a small motor car and an abundance of lettering arranged like advertisements, labels and scraps of printed ephemera.

Prominent at the top is the name:

GERRY MULLIGAN

while elsewhere the image includes the names Chet & Gerry, together with phrases referring to Mulligan’s appearance and clothing. The whole composition has the appearance of an imagined mid-century advertisement, record sleeve, tailor’s poster and jazz broadside combined into a single image.

Gerry Mulligan

Gerry Mulligan (1927–1996) was one of the major figures in post-war American jazz and is particularly associated with the baritone saxophone, arranging and the development of cool jazz.

His work as an arranger contributed to the sessions later collected as Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool, while in the early 1950s Mulligan established the celebrated pianoless quartet with trumpeter Chet Baker. Their unusually open instrumentation gave greater space to melodic interaction between the two horns and became one of the defining sounds of West Coast jazz.

The words “Chet & Gerry” within Hannah’s image therefore provide a direct reference to one of Mulligan’s most important musical partnerships.

For Hannah, whose work repeatedly engages with jazz, record culture and musicians, Mulligan provides an ideal subject: visually distinctive, musically influential and inseparable from the design language of mid-century record sleeves, posters and American popular culture.

Clothing, Style and Jazz

The most immediately unusual feature of Mr Gerry Mulligan is the prominence given to clothes rather than musical instruments.

At the centre is a large jacket and tie, accompanied by phrases including:

“He wore jackets like this”

and

“He wore shoes like this. FACT.”

A substantial shoe occupies the lower right corner.

This transforms the work into something resembling a playful visual biography. Hannah presents Mulligan not simply as a musician but as a figure possessing a particular look, style and cultural identity.

Other lettering evokes the language of clothing shops, tailors, advertising and jazz typography. The result is both affectionate and knowingly eccentric: a portrait assembled through the things associated with its subject rather than through his physical likeness.

Chet and Gerry

The inclusion of the words “Chet & Gerry” is especially significant.

Mulligan’s quartet with Chet Baker became one of the best-known small jazz groups of the early 1950s. The absence of piano produced a spacious sound in which Mulligan’s baritone saxophone and Baker’s trumpet could interact with exceptional freedom.

Hannah’s reference is economical but immediately recognisable to a jazz collector, adding another level of meaning to an image already rich in fragments of music history.

Typography and Graphic Language

As with many of Hannah’s strongest prints, lettering is as important as illustration.

The composition combines decorative scripts, block capitals, handwritten phrases and display lettering. Individual words behave almost like objects, producing a deliberately crowded visual rhythm.

The palette is equally distinctive: powder blue, coral-red, dark blue-black, cream and tan, printed onto a warm buff-coloured sheet. The restricted colours give the image an appropriately mid-century character without attempting to reproduce historical graphics literally.

The result evokes the broader visual culture around jazz — album sleeves, club posters, advertisements, clothing labels and printed ephemera — while remaining unmistakably Hannah’s own work.

Screenprint Technique

This is an original colour screenprint, not a later photographic or digital reproduction.

Successive layers of colour create the dense composition while retaining Hannah’s deliberately irregular drawing and hand lettering. Variations of printed texture, slightly broken areas of colour and hand-worked edges are characteristic of the screenprinting process and form part of the intended appearance.

The large sheet size allows these surface qualities to be appreciated particularly well.

Date and Edition

The work dates from 2008 and was issued in a particularly small edition of:

25 impressions only

This example is:

13/25

The edition is therefore only half the size of the 50-copy editions commonly encountered among Hannah’s limited screenprints.

Combined with the large 51.7 × 71.8 cm format and strong jazz subject, this restricted edition gives Mr Gerry Mulligan particular collector interest.

Artist

Jonny Hannah is a British illustrator, painter and printmaker whose work frequently draws upon jazz and popular music, hand lettering, old advertisements, shop signs, record graphics, folk art and vernacular printed culture.

Music is an especially important strand within his work, and Hannah’s treatment of musicians often extends beyond straightforward portraiture into the surrounding culture of records, clothes, typography and personal mythology.

Mr Gerry Mulligan is an excellent example of this approach: an affectionate visual portrait of a major jazz figure constructed through typography, clothing, historical references and the graphic language surrounding the music itself.

Condition

Very good to excellent condition overall.

The colours remain strong and well balanced, with particularly good definition to the blue, coral and dark printed areas.

There is only light natural handling and minor paper irregularity consistent with the age and handmade nature of the screenprint. Small variations in ink coverage and surface are intrinsic to the printing process rather than later defects.

The pencil signature, 2008 date and edition number 13/25 remain clearly visible.

Please study the photographs carefully as they form an integral part of the description.

Artist: Jonny Hannah
Title: Mr Gerry Mulligan
Date: 2008
Medium: Original colour screenprint
Edition: 13/25
Edition size: 25
Signed: Yes, in pencil
Dated: 2008
Size: 51.7 × 71.8 cm
Imprint: Cakes & Ale Press
Subject: Gerry Mulligan / jazz
Format: Original limited-edition artist’s screenprint
Unframed: Yes
Modern reproduction: No

Authenticity

This work has been handled, inspected and catalogued in-house at Hornseys before being offered for sale.

The pencil signature, date, edition number 13/25 and Cakes & Ale Press imprint are visible on the sheet.

It is an original signed and numbered Jonny Hannah screenprint from an edition of only 25, not a later reproduction.

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Explore our evolving collection of Jonny Hannah original paintings, signed and limited-edition prints, illustrated books and related artworks. His distinctive imagery, hand lettering and narrative style draw upon music, maritime culture, vintage advertising, folk art, popular entertainment and the visual character of British towns and seaside communities.

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