[Blind Drawing of a Nude Figure]

[Blind Drawing of a Nude Figure]

1978
(10"w by 14"h)
Pen and ink on paper.

NOTE: Colin Franklin has written, ‘Morris Cox had for many years trusted a kind of life force in the accidents of line, ‘the reticulation of a cracked plate’ or flower-effect of cake paper when squashed into a printing surface. All sorts of effects were achieved in blind drawings, a whirling ballet in line on white. Each was signed, dated and given a BD stamp of affirmation in red. In his possession was a box of such drawings, with a printed apologia beginning:

The purpose of this exercise is:
1. To establish a clear subjective mental image before attempting to draw.
2. To encourage spontaneous gestures in expressing this image with pen on paper but with eyes firmly closed.’
(GOGMAGOG 158).

Cox produced several thousand blind drawings from 1968 to the end of his life. Often he kept them in series, in the order of composition, as the very process of the drawings he felt were important. While the best of the blind drawings are highly appealing in their own right, Cox would use them as the basis for paintings and prints with often striking results.

courtesy of Colin Franklin