Spanish Royalty

Artist John O'Reilly (American, 1930–2021)

Date1986

MediumPolaroid photomontage

Dimensionsimage: 10 × 21 cm (3 15/16 × 8 1/4 in.)
mount: 33 × 43 cm (13 × 16 15/16 in.)
frame: 34.6 × 44.9 cm (13 5/8 × 17 11/16 in.)

ClassificationsCollages / Assemblages

Credit LineGift of John O'Reilly

Object number2018.22

Label TextFrom 1960 to 1961, O’Reilly and his partner Jim Tellin lived in a small mountain town south of Málaga, Spain. During that time O’Reilly developed an intense, life-long connection to Spanish art, especially the work of twentieth-century Cubist artist Pablo Picasso and seventeenth-century painter Diego Velázquez. In Spanish Royalty, the head from one of Velázquez’s portraits of King Philip IV is secured to O’Reilly’s body, effectively unifying the two artists as a single being. Similarly, in Spanish Court, O’Reilly licks the armpit of Picasso, an act the artist has compared to the sacrament of taking communion.

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