Simon Cutts

Catalogue entry

P08181 Winter Fruit 1980

Letterpress 2 1/2 × 3 5/8 (60 × 90) on paper 14 1/4 × 10 3/4 (365 × 273), printed by the artist and published by Coracle Press
Inscribed ‘26/50’ on bottom of cover
Transferred from the Library 1982

The artist has explained to the compiler that the image came from a label stuck on the end of a shoe box to identify the contents. He entitled it ‘Winter Fruit’ because ‘it was exactly the same sort of label that one finds on boxes and trays of fruit in France. Clearly it's a Winter fruit.’ He also stated that the image is in ‘the grand tradition of found material. It helps that I knew I could print it reproductively, with the help of a superior engraved block maker, and thereby make an edition. Its significance grew on me as I admired it more and more, until I had a more formal object, with both title, content or “poem”’. The work is to a certain extent a homage to the Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. The artist remarked that ‘I had seen Finlay wear those type of slippers, and to find that they were called Babouche Ecossais by the French had a suitable wildness to it’. A babouche is a Turkish slipper.

This entry has been approved by the artist.

Published in:
The Tate Gallery 1982-84: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London 1986

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