Suellen Rocca

Rocca was a member of the Hairy Who, a group of recent graduates of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago who exhibited under that moniker from 1966 to 1969 in Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and Washington, DC. Their professors, Ray Yoshida and Whitney Halstead, encouraged them to draw inspiration from a wide range of nontraditional sources, including advertisements and comic books. Rocca's development of what she termed "picture-writing" was inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphics, children's activity books, advertisements for women's products, and the jewelry catalogs brought home by her husband, a jeweler. She said, "Palm trees, diamond rings, bra styles in the Sears Roebuck catalog, dancing couples from Arthur Murray ads, and pictures of fancy hairdos tucked into the back pages of magazines were the cultural icons of beauty and romance expressed by the media that promised happiness to young women of that generation. This was the culture that surrounded me." Game Page with Poodle was included in the first "Hairy Who" exhibition at Chicago's Hyde Park Art Center in 1966. At only twenty-three years old, Rocca's pictographic style was already well established. Present here are some of her common motifs, including a poodle, umbrellas, and bows, drawn in a style reminiscent of mid-century advertising and activity books for young children. At the bottom of the sheet, several glyphs contain writing in cursive, with phrases such as "Curly head" and "Bare shouldered beauty." These refer to other paintings, prints, and drawings she made during this period. Rocca contrasted her own work with East Coast Pop Art by underscoring that her iconography, though also drawn from popular culture, was primarily autobiographical.