Bicycle

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

Date2015

Mediumcollage of found prints with ink and crayon, and graphite drawing, mounted to board

Dimensionsframe: 50.8 × 40.6 cm (20 × 16 in.)

ClassificationsCollages / Assemblages

Credit LineAmerican Deaccession Funds

Terms

Object number2018.9

Label TextO’Reilly considers World War II a focal moment in his life. His father served in New Caledonia, a French territory in the South Pacific. Fear for his well-being generated ongoing anxiety for the O’Reilly household. However, O’Reilly and his friends turned the war into a form of amusement by playing with toy soldiers and staging their own battles. Fanciful in their use of coloring books and found drawings, collages like Submarine and Bicycle also arouse fear through the inclusion of kamikaze birds and airplanes. Uniting conflicting sentiments and iconography, O’Reilly uses what he calls a “mythic language” to visually represent complex psychological states.

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