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Label Text Jess showed an early interest in art as a child but trained as a scientist. He worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II but in 1948, after having an intense nightmare that foretold the Earth’s destruction by nuclear weapons, he abandoned science and moved to San Francisco to pursue art. Two years later, he met the Beat poet Robert Duncan (1919–1988), who would become his lifelong partner. This work was composed over an antique oil painting Jess discovered in Duncan’s family home. Its title comes from an essay by Duncan, and the isolated figures were inspired from a selection of printed material Jess had on hand, which he later affixed to the back of the painting. October, 2020
Exhibition History"Jess; A Grand Collage, 1951-1993," Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, Sept. 11 - Oct. 31, 1993, (circulated to: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, Dec. 23, 1993 - Jan. 30, 1994, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, Feb. 28- April 28, 1994, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, June 1 - Aug. 30, 1994, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, Sept. 20 - Dec. 15, 1994)

"Jess: The Romantic Paintings," The Arts Club of Chicago, Feb. 25 - Apr.4, 1981

"Translations, Salvages, Paste-Ups by Jess," Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, (circulated to: University Art Museum, Berkely, June 7 - July 24, 1977; Des Moines Art center, Oct. 26 - Dec. 4, 1977; Odyssia Gallery, N.Y. "Paste Up and Salvages by Jess," Nov. 6, 1978 - Jan. 6, 1979), cat. no. 17

"Seventieth American Exhibition," Art Institute of Chicago, IL, June 24 - Aug. 20, 1972
Published References"Jess: A Grand Collage," Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 1993, exh. cat. color ill. pl. 77, p.215

DMAC Bulletin, Sept./Oct., 1977, ill.

DES MOINES ART CENTER: SELECTED PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES AND WORKS ON PAPER, Des Moines Art Center, 1985, ref. p.89, b/w ill. pl.64, p.88

THE NATHAN EMORY COFFIN COLLECTION, a portfolio of fifty selections from the collection, published by the Des Moines Art Center to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Nathan Emory Coffin, 1981, b/w ill.

AN UNCOMMON VISION: THE DES MOINES ART CENTER, Des Moines Art Center, 1998, ref. & color detail p.146, color ill. p.147

"Seventieth American Exhibition," Art Institute of Chicago, IL, 1972, exh. cat. no.24, ill. p.23

"Jess: To and From the Printed Page", Independent Curators International, New York, 2007, fig. 5, color ill. pg. 17
DimensionsFrame: 18 1/4 × 22 3/8 × 1 in. (46.4 × 56.8 × 2.5 cm)
Canvas: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
Accession Number 1972.90
Classificationspainting
SignedJS (l,l oil paint)
InscriptionsJess '72 188 (63:72) "A Panic that can Still Come Upon Me" - Robert Duncan (on back in watercolor upper left) Hinged cardboard on back (inside in felt pen) Jess '72 "A Panic That Can Still Come Upon Me" 188 In the world of saying and telling in which I first same into words there is a primary trouble, a panic that can still come upon me where the word no longer protects, transforming teh threat of an overwhelming knowledge into the power of an imagined reality, or abstracting from a shaking experience terms for rationalization, but exposes me the more. - Robert Duncan, THE TRUTH & LIFE OF MYTH Back of cardboard (across top in felt pen): The fish in teh net, the nodes of the lattice, the images crystallized with the paint: (11 black and white photographs pasted below)
ProvenanceArtist. (Odyssia Gallery, New York); Des Moines Art Center [purchased from the previous, 1972]
"A Panic That Can Still Come Upon Me": Salvages II
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Max Weber
ca. 1924
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Giorgio Morandi
1959
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
William Merritt Chase
ca. 1908
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Marsden Hartley
1929
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Albert Bloch
1914
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
William Bailey
1976
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Maurice de Vlaminck
1923
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Mikhail Larionov
1908
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Marsden Hartley
ca. 1922