DAVID HAMMONS (1943 - )
The Man Nobody Killed.

Stenciled paint and collage printed on commercially printed cardboard, 1986. 280x216 mm; 11x8½ inches. Edition of 200. From Cobalt Myth Mechanics, 1986/1987, Eye Magazine, #14. Published by Eye Publications, New York.

Provenance: private collection, California; acquired from Swann Auction Galleries, June 4, 2020, private collection, California.

While from an edition, each printing of The Man Nobody Killed is a unique variation. Each were printed on different found cardboard material, sometimes with additional printed surfaces or collaged material. Another impression is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The subject of the work is Michael Stewart, a New York artist who died as a result of injuries sustained while in police custody following an arrest by the New York City Transit Police.

The artist Michael Stewart and Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting The Death of Michael Stewart (Defacement) were the subject of the recent exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Basquiat's "Defacement": the Untold Story, June 21 - November 6, 2019. The exhibition included The MoMA impression of this print alongside artworks by Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, George Condo and Lyle Ashton Harris. It was organized by guest curator Chaédria LaBouvier - the first African American to be the curator of an exhibition at the museum.