“My ‘model’ was Mae West (appearing at the time of execution of this painting, on television’s Late, Late Show in ‘Night after Night’–1932) who is the most American bloom to have flowered on this ‘scene,’ which, in my case, is obviously *A*M*E*R*I*C*A*N*, and loaded with ‘personal,’ ‘topical,’ and ‘symbolic’ significance, namely all those dear and much-travelled U.S. Routes: #40, #29, #37 (on which I have lived) and #66 of the U.S. Air Force days; those awful five bases of The American Game; the TILT of all those millions of Pin Ball Machines and Juke Boxes in all those hundreds of thousands of grubby bars and roadside cafes, alternate spiritual homes of the American; the star-studded Take All, well-established ethic in all realms—spiritual, economic, political, social, sexual and cultural. Full-stop.”
Museum of Modern Art, New York, Artist Questionnaire, December 1961.
