Jonny Hannah – The Cosmic American Funeral of Mr Gram Parsons – Signed Limited Edition Linocut 3/50 – Cakes & Ale Press – 2008

Description

A striking and darkly humorous original colour linocut by Jonny Hannah, entitled The Cosmic American Funeral of Mr Gram Parsons, dating from 2008.

The work measures 20 × 23.2 cm and was issued in a limited edition of only 50 impressions. This example is number 3/50, signed and dated 2008 by Jonny Hannah in pencil, with the Cakes & Ale Press imprint printed in the right-hand margin.

The composition is contained within a dense black rectangular field bordered by the hand-cut title:

THE COSMIC AMERICAN FUNERAL OF MR. GRAM PARSONS.

Within it Hannah reduces the subject to a small group of potent desert symbols: a yellow crescent moon, two bright blue cacti, a branching red desert plant or tree, and, at the bottom, a vivid orange-red fire surrounding a turquoise coffin-like form.

The limited palette of black, red, orange, blue, turquoise, yellow and cream gives the image the visual directness of a vintage matchbox label, roadside sign or cheaply printed memorial card, while the subject itself is rooted in one of the most extraordinary episodes in American music history.

Gram Parsons

Gram Parsons (1946–1973) was an influential American singer, songwriter and guitarist whose work helped shape the meeting point between country music and rock.

His career included important periods with The International Submarine Band, The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, followed by two solo albums, GP and Grievous Angel. His musical relationship with Emmylou Harris was particularly significant.

Parsons resisted simple genre labels and famously used the phrase “Cosmic American Music” for his ideal synthesis of country, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, soul and other American musical traditions.

Hannah’s title deliberately adapts that phrase into The Cosmic American Funeral of Mr Gram Parsons, bringing Parsons’s musical mythology together with the extraordinary circumstances surrounding his death.

The Joshua Tree Funeral

Parsons died in September 1973, aged only 26, while staying near Joshua Tree, California.

What followed became one of rock music’s most enduring legends.

Parsons had reportedly expressed a wish that, when he died, his body should be taken to Joshua Tree and cremated in the desert. After his death, his road manager Phil Kaufman and an accomplice intercepted the coffin before it could be transported for burial, drove it into the desert and attempted to burn Parsons’s body near Cap Rock in Joshua Tree National Monument.

The improvised cremation was only partly successful, but the incident became inseparable from Parsons’s posthumous mythology.

Hannah distils that story into remarkably economical visual terms: desert, cactus, moon, coffin and flames.

“Cosmic American”

The title is particularly well chosen.

Parsons used “Cosmic American Music” to describe a musical approach that refused the conventional boundaries separating country, rock, soul and rhythm and blues.

By turning that phrase into “The Cosmic American Funeral”, Hannah creates a title that is simultaneously affectionate, irreverent and historically specific.

There is very little conventional portraiture or biography in the image. Instead, Hannah builds a kind of graphic memorial from the symbols associated with Parsons’s final story.

Desert Iconography

The Joshua Tree landscape is suggested through a small number of highly recognisable forms.

The crescent moon establishes a nocturnal setting. The two blue cacti immediately signal the American desert, while the central branching red form has the quality of a strange desert plant, tree or folk emblem.

At the bottom of the composition, the fiery coffin provides the crucial narrative element.

The result resembles an invented piece of American folk art: part memorial plaque, part country-music broadside and part roadside graphic.

Music, Myth and Hannah

The subject is exceptionally well suited to Hannah’s interests.

His work repeatedly draws upon music, musicians, old records, vernacular lettering, folk art, popular mythology and the visual culture surrounding songs and performers.

Gram Parsons combines many of these strands. His short life, highly influential music, flamboyant image and extraordinary posthumous story have all contributed to a mythology extending well beyond his relatively small recorded output.

Hannah responds to that mythology rather than attempting a conventional likeness.

Linocut Technique

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

The relief-printing process gives the black ground a deliberately textured surface and lends the coloured forms their characteristic hand-cut edges.

Areas of broken ink and slight variation in printed density are intrinsic to the linocut process and contribute to the handmade quality of the impression.

The relatively small size — 20 × 23.2 cm — strengthens the work’s resemblance to a folk label, memorial card or small commercial sign.

Date and Edition

The work dates from 2008.

This example is:

3/50

from an edition of only 50 impressions.

The early-numbered impression is clearly identifiable, although the number itself should be regarded principally as part of the edition record rather than as conferring a separate market premium.

The signature, date, edition number and Cakes & Ale Press imprint are all visible on the sheet.

Condition

Very good condition overall.

The colours remain strong and the composition retains excellent contrast against the dense black printed ground.

There is light natural handling and paper undulation consistent with the age and handmade nature of the work. Small variations in ink density and printed texture are characteristic of the original linocut process rather than subsequent deterioration.

The pencil signature, 2008 date and edition number 3/50 remain clear and legible.

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

Artist: Jonny Hannah
Title: The Cosmic American Funeral of Mr Gram Parsons
Date: 2008
Medium: Original colour linocut
Edition: 3/50
Edition size: 50
Signed: Yes, in pencil
Dated: 2008
Size: 20 × 23.2 cm
Imprint: Cakes & Ale Press
Subject: Gram Parsons / Joshua Tree / country rock / Cosmic American Music
Format: Original limited-edition artist’s linocut
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 3/50 and Cakes & Ale Press imprint are all visible on the work.

It is an original signed and numbered Jonny Hannah linocut from an edition of only 50, not a later reproduction.

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