Along with several others, this work suggests that Barton was familiar with the drawings of Jean Cocteau. The French avant-gardist’s unflinching depictions of gay subjects, including bars that he frequented, would certainly have been of interest to the young American artist, as they were to his contemporary Andy Warhol. This tender drawing of a sleeping man resembles a series of drawings that Cocteau published of his lover Raymond Radiguet, a writer, in the 1920s. (Barton’s drawing of leaves on the sheet’s reverse is visible.)
Rick Barton (1928–1992)
Untitled [Sleeping man], 1960
Pen and ink
Rick Barton papers (Collection 2374), UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles