Radcliffe Bailey

Island Press collaborated with Radcliffe Bailey (Jack Shainman Gallery) beginning in 2011 to produce four editions – three large-scale works on paper and one sculptural multiple – that use photographs from his tintype collection as starting points to explore legacy, spirit, and trickster mythologies in various cultures.

Bailey’s Tricky 3 and Eshu’s Ghost use the same tintype of a man wearing a top hat, sitting for the portrait. The tintype image has been enlarged to become life-sized in the Island Press prints, and Bailey inserts Haitian voodoo veve images as well as Yoruba Eshu figures to create a kind of ancestral self-portrait as trickster. These innovative prints are cut to the shape of the tintype and incorporate velvet, glitter, and collage - materials and strategies common to Bailey’s practice. Top Hat is a sculptural multiple made from velvet, rabbit fur, davey board, and feathers.