This is the first monograph on Chicago-based Hairy Who artist Suellen Rocca (born 1943), presenting her paintings, drawings and prints from the 1960s. Among her contemporaries, Rocca’s work is notable for its vocabulary of pictographic imagery inspired by consumer catalogues, magazine advertisements and children’s activity books.
Featuring full-color plates of more than 50 artworks, virtually all of which are reproduced here for the first time, this volume presents a thorough overview of the artist’s work from 1964 to 1969. An essay by Dan Nadel traces Rocca’s artistic development, situating her within art history. Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer’s essay employs verse and prose to explore the thematic undercurrents of Rocca’s work. Completing the book are a bibliography and a narrative chronology of the artist’s life, illustrated with historical photographs and ephemera from her archive.
A parade of repeating motifs dance across Suellen Rocca’s oeuvre: diamond rings, disembodied hands and legs, palm trees, ice cream cones, cookies, and handbags. Consumerism is evident in works like Miami Handbag (c. 1968) and Buy More Diamonds (c. 1968), and in the distinctive composition of many works, which resemble catalogues or magazine layouts. In Rocca’s words, her art addresses the “visual language of romance and feminine happiness,” evoking the desires and pressures of middle-class womanhood. The book includes a brief introduction to Rocca’s background, as well as a poem by Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer commenting on the major themes of her art: “The world is obviously overstuffed. / It bubbles, erupts; it is too much!”
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