#rayjohnsonestate

We have a small collection of this drawing series of “broken dishes” at the Ray Johnson Estate, which were created at various times from 1978 to 1989.  The drawings are done in Ray Johnson's signature graphic style.  His viewpoint is often above the object and flattened. It is completely manipulated so that the bases of glasses and openings are not presented in conventional perspective, but do suggest the overall shapes of the dishes.

The choice of cracked and broken crockery may be linked to the eastern philosophies that Johnson had an interest in.  Zen was a popular subject during the 1950s with Alan Watts' lectures being broadcast on the radio, and the lectures of D.T. Suzuki—which John Cage sat in on—being given at Columbia University, so Johnson was certainly aware of its basic precepts.  He learned more about certain elements, like the operations of chance, from John Cage whom he lived next to on Monroe Street for several years.  The lower east side is not far from New York's Chinatown, and Johnson often brought back things he found there with pictographic characters on them.  These signs were often incorporated into his collages. In the case of broken vessels, the concept of emptiness, or the chance shapes created by the physical remnants of a once-whole object have a kind of Zen quality that Johnson would have admired.

Johnson also associated the broken dishes with his network of artist friends and pop culture icons. Some of the above example’s were directed specifically to these figures. In a typed letter from November 8, 1967, to J.O. Mallander, Johnson mentions his broken dishes series, he writes:

Dear Paul Klee, Happy Birthday!