"My Life Ruined By Sex" by William Kent, (Amer., 1919-2012)

Slate Print, 1964, 28 known in various colors on various papers and fabrics, 16 of these printed in 2009-10, this early impression signed, dated and numbered 3/20 in pencil, on warm white japan paper. There are creases from printing and handling as is common with Kent's prints. The witty, high camp of this image allowed Kent an outlet to express his own conflicted and concealed feelings as a gay man in America of the 1950's and 60's. Borrowing figures from 1960's advertising of the dapper man and elegant woman in the background who overlaps the lower half of a skirt clad mannequin, Kent uses a lead-in tabloid title as a headline. The oval format echoes the shape of an egg, symbol of procreation, here imprisoning the figures within. With today's flood of overdue media attention on sexual harassment and abuse, this print, like so many of Kents works, takes on a timely relevance.