About Kevin Quigley

Any true biography of an artist will be a story of influence.  If nobody has already said this (Emerson?), I’m saying it now. So, in that light:

Church, creche, crucifix, the Lone Ranger, Hailey Mills. The Time of their Lives, Invaders From Mars, Martian Invasion and Civil War trading cards, unbelievably lurid and bought from a nickel machine (does anyone remember this?), Jack the Giant Killer, the opening shot of the London skyline in Mary Poppins, the opening shots of NYC in West Side Story, A Hard Day’s Night, Superman (the tv show even more so than the comic), comics, Sgt. Rock, the Haunted Tank, Classics Illustrated, Mad Magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Thunderball cards (on one of which when no one was looking, I kissed the cardboard visage of a beautiful, bikini-clad brunette), the summer of Batman cards, Tom Swift novels (just the covers), Doc Savage novels (covers only), Sgt. Peppers cover, Disraeli Gears cover, Cheap Thrills cover, all those astonishing album covers, then completely get it when the plain-ass reaction covers to those covers--Morrison Hotel being my favorite example--start to appear. Underground comics, forbidden yet displayed in head shops on the same revolving racks as those in the candy stores. R. Crumb, at first appalling then an obsession, Ball Four, The Godfather, Sirens of Titan, Trout Fishing in America (great cover), On the Road, The Journal of Albion Moonlight, Tropic of Cancer, Herzog, Humboldt’s Gift. Astonished by the Impressionists, astonished by the Fauves, Ensor, Munch, Rouault, Beckman, Soutine, Dubuffet, Karel Appel, Georg Baselitz, and a hundred others. Astonished.