{"data":{"id":"2644","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":2644,"topgoose_id":1916,"tms_id":2644,"display_name":"Jess","sort_name":"Jess","display_date":"1923–2004","begin_date":"1923","end_date":"2004","biography":"\u003cp\u003eA San Francisco Bay Area artist who came to prominence working alongside artists and writers of the Beat Generation in the 1950s, Jess (Collins) created figurative paintings with a literary sensibility. Trained as a chemist, he worked on producing plutonium for the Manhattan Project during World War II before dropping his surname and enrolling at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute), where he studied under painters \u003ca href=\"/artists/1293\"\u003eClyfford Still\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"/artists/1234\"\u003eHassel Smith\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"/artists/121\"\u003eElmer Bischoff\u003c/a\u003e, and \u003ca href=\"/artists/991\"\u003eDavid Park\u003c/a\u003e. His long-term romantic partnership with Beat poet Robert Duncan, whom he met in 1951, served as great artistic inspiration; the two often collaborated, with Jess’s artwork accompanying Duncan’s poems.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJess is known for his collages, which he referred to as “paste-ups,” a term that references the media and advertising culture of the time. \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/9517\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eTricky Cad, Case 1,\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e in which individual panels from Chester Gould’s \u003cem\u003eDick Tracy\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003ecomic strips have been\ncut up and rearranged, is an early paste-up\nthat references Pop art, Dada collage,\nand the experimental cut-up poetry that\nWilliam Burroughs would produce later\nin the 1950s. Jess reordered the plots\nand relettered the dialogue of the\ncomics, but made no additions. As the\noriginal narrative breaks down, a strange\npoetry emerges. In an introduction\nto the series, Jess referred to the project\nas “a demonstration of a hermetic\ncritique self-contained in popular art.”\nThis critique, however, is infused with a\nplayful sensibility. Jess transforms\nthe deconstructed comic strip into a\nriddle that demonstrates the unexpected\npotential for poetics in pop culture.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":false,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500030886","wikidata_id":"Q4228019","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:52:47.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-12T07:02:55.452-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/2644/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/2644/exhibitions"}}}}