PETER HUTCHINSON
Sketch for the Letter Y.

Felt-tip pen and ink and photo collage on thick card, 1974. 385x254 mm; 15 1/8x10 inches. Signed in ink, lower right recto.

British artist Hutchinson's (born 1930) Alphabet Series was published as a book in 1974 by the John Gibson Gallery, New York in an edition of 1,000. For the project, Hutchinson paired a personal memory or joke corresponding to a letter of the alphabet with a photograph. For the letter "Y" Hutchinson wrote about yoga masters and their unwavering discipline, though humorously taken literally, he detailed practices such intestinal washing and forking tongues. He would return to the subject of alphabetized thoughts with his artist books Alphabet Cottage (1976), An Alliterative Alphabet (1983), and Evolution Alphabet (1997).