Six Piccadillies Slideshow

The use of postcards is important in Dieter Roth's oeuvre after 1962, containing the germ of several later phases. It must have been when he was staying in England with his good friend Richard and his equally good friend Rita that he saw the postcard that became the model for the series of prints called Six Piccadillies (1969-70). The work comprises six double-sided prints in a paper box. Photomechanical enlargements of the postcards are reproduced, using an offset printing technique, on chromolux card stock, then laminated onto both sides of a piece of cardboard. On the verso, the view of a detail is compressed to postcard size by monochrome overprinting of the surface of the image. As in the portfolio Container, the artist used procedure to give insight into the variety of aesthetic possibilities. This edition of prints is based on a series of originals, reworked, using the offset method, with tar, paint, chocolate, glue, and cocoa powder shrink-wrapped in plastic. Its intent is to transfer this aesthetic of materials to the printed medium. For example, the cardboard overprinted in cloudy white corresponds to an original that Roth overpainted with a thick layer of glue which became transparent as it dried. Another print, in which everything is hidden but the frames of the (characteristic) double-decker buses, corresponds to an original on which a thick layer of chocolate was applied. Repetition is an important element of the series. The same image undergoes several processes with only slight differences. Richness and variety reach a high point in this complex of works; counting originals and editions of prints, volume 36 of the Collected Work includes ninety-six versions of postcards dating from 1968 to 1977.

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