Robert Stackhouse

(New York, b. 1942)

Adrift, 1996

Seven-color lithograph on black Arches paper

44 1/4" x 30 1/4"

Pencil-signed, dated, and numbered ("A.P. 1/5") along the bottom edge. Printed at the Lawrence Lithography Workshop. Float-mounted in a glazed frame that measures 49" x 35". The collection of artist Jane Voorhees (1942-2026).

Robert Stackhouse: Editions Archives (2008) describes Adrift as "...not so much a specific vessel as a way to convey the essence of concrete types of vessel forms, or embody important parts deep within our memory. The enclosing volumetric nature also intentionally alludes to the coffin form. His images and structures frequently have the transcendental quality of things long dead rising to a new and higher form. A ship’s skeleton from the bottom of the sea may take on cathedral-like characteristics in a gallery space or the open air. 'Adrift is printed on black paper which adds to the ship’s [the Queen Mary is the vessel depicted] ominous presence; water sloughs off its bow as it punches out of the gloom into the viewer’s space in a way that it would not if the underlying black were a printed surface.'"

More succinctly, Robert Stackhouse spoke Adrift's themes in the article Stackhouse: Snapshots of an Artist (2009): "It's a ship on the ocean, but there's no ship there. It's just the wake. It's about mortality or immortality -- what do we leave after we go?"

Excellent condition.