1988–92: Stains and Puddles
. . . Pet stains . . . hopefully that’s something that everyone has seen in common. They hold together in a visual memory bank. And I personally find them very—some of them— very sublime as drawings.
The stain as a source of inspiration has a long history going back to Leonardo da Vinci, who encouraged artists to find models of composition in old stains on walls. Victor Hugo and the Surrealists experimented with ink stains to stimulate their imagination. Around 1990, Taylor gave the concept a new twist by imitating the patterns of stains left by dogs on the sidewalk. In drawings at once refined and playful, he visualized stains moving from one plane to another and puddles hanging from wires. On some of the sheets he inscribed names next to the stains—as if to identify the perpetrators— combining visual and verbal puns to add another layer of humor and poetry.
Hanging & Folding Study
Al Taylor (1948–1999)
Hanging & Folding Study, 1991
Graphite, gouache, and correction fluid
Collection Debbie Taylor
Photography by Glenn Steigelman. © 2019 The Estate of Al Taylor
Hanging Puddles
Al Taylor (1948–1999)
Hanging Puddles, 1992
Gouache and graphite
Private Collection
Photography by Glenn Steigelman. © 2019 The Estate of Al Taylor
The Peabody Group #29
The Peabody Group, which includes forty- one sheets, marks the culmination of Taylor’s Pet Names/Pet Stains series. The names inscribed on them mix well-known personalities and fictional characterswith cities, foods, plants, and other items, creating a vast network of allusions that broadens the implications of the drawings. Fond of wordplay, Taylor often chose words with multiple meanings. The title Peabody, no doubt picked for its homophony with “pee-body,” may refer to Mr. Peabody, the dog in the popular 1960s television series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, but also to prestigious scientific institutions such as the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard, lending an aura of authority to Taylor’s humorous classification of drips and blobs.
Al Taylor (1948–1999)
The Peabody Group #29, 1992
Watercolor, gouache, ink, coffee, graphite, colored pencil, and ballpoint pen
The Morgan Library & Museum. Gift of the Modern & Contemporary Collectors Committee; 2011.7
© 2019 The Estate of Al Taylor
Drawings on pages of Florentine Art Treasures by Rosa Maria Letts (London: Roydon, 1970)
Taylor altered this used copy of a book on Italian Renaissance painting by drawing on its pages. He blacked out parts of the text to change its meaning and offered his interpretation of the paintings’ compositions through the addition of ink, gouache, and white correction fluid. The puddle-like motifs and wordplay relate to the Pet Stains and Pet Names drawings Taylor was making at the same time.
Al Taylor (1948–1999)
Drawings on pages of Florentine Art Treasures by Rosa Maria Letts (London: Roydon, 1970), ca. 1990
Ink, gouache, marker, and correction fluid
The Morgan Library & Museum. Gift of Debbie Taylor; 2016.5
© The Estate of Al Taylor