One Cent Life

(fig. 1) Sam Francis, pages 104-105. Color

 lithograph on paper, (1 Cent Life), 1964.

 The explosive energy of Sam Francis’s primary

 color showers the ground of Walasse Ting’s poem

 Black Stone.

In 1964, artist and poet Walasse Ting published a pioneering illustrated book of poetry entitled One Cent Life, which brought together artists of divergent approaches and backgrounds, many of whom would soon dominate the contemporary art scene. Twenty-eight artists illustrated the pages of the volume with sixty-two original lithographs, working with Ting to harmoniously meld western artistic movements, from Abstract Expressionism to American Pop Art, with the poet's eastern-infused English verse.[i] Ryerson Library holds a copy of the regular edition (number 1348 in an edition of 2000), which features a hand-printed cover by participating artists Pierre Alechinsky and Roy Lichtenstein. One hundred special editions were also released on handmade paper and signed by individual artists.[ii]

In many ways the book reflects Ting's circuitous artistic trajectory. Born in China in 1929, he traveled to Paris in 1952, where he met Alechinsky and the founders of the CoBrA group, Karl Appel and Asger Jorn. In 1956 Ting settled in New York City and befriended the Abstract Expressionist artist Sam Francis and two emerging Pop artists, Claus Oldenburg, and Tom Wesselmann.[iii] Such global explorations and the discovery of creative counterparts inspired him to publish a book encompassing diverse artistic movements and artists from around the western world. Ting began this undertaking by writing the poems that would later be illustrated by fellow artists in One Cent Life.[iv] He recounted the genesis of the compilation:

I wrote 61 poems in ’61 in a small room like black coffin, inside room only salami, whiskey, sexy photographs from Times Square. No Bible, no cookbook, no telephone book, no checkbook. Short Two fingers typing, talking about World & garbage, You and I, Egg and Earth.[v]

The collective aspect of the project took physical shape when Ting's and Francis's friends around the globe began creating lithographs in response to the poet’s seedy and erotic poetry. Francis, who acted as editor for the volume, also provided funding to purchase the seventeen tons of paper needed, and the Swiss art dealer E. W. Kornfeld printed the editions.[vi]

One Cent Life makes the reader a witness to the inspirations and interactions of the artists brought together by the project. Artistic approaches representing various movements appear and blend with each successive page. While most of the lithographs glow with the intense, unmixed colors associated with the CoBrA group of the 1950s,[vii] the book also exudes the aggressive energy of Abstract Expressionism in the work of Francis (fig. 1) and of Joan Mitchell, both of whom had previously illustrated another of Ting's poetic compilations Fresh Air School.[viii] Roy Lichtenstein, on the other hand, created his first self-proclaimed Pop Art images after working with Jim Dine, Oldenburg, and Andy Warhol on the project. The emergence of Pop Art is also evident in the ways many images incorporate reproductions of advertisements, postcards, and postage stamps.[ix] One Cent Life captures these developments through wide-ranging examples of the era's great innovators and provides a window onto the vibrant origins of overlapping movements and their creators, all inspired by the vision of the artist and poet Walasse Ting.

Written by Danielle N. Kramer

Edited by Diane Miliotes


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[i] Mary Lee Corlett, The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonne 1948-1993 (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1994), 20-21. The complete list of participating artists includes Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, Enrico Baj, Alan Davie, Jim Dine, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Sam Francis, Robert Indiana, Alfred Jensen, Asger Jorn, Allan Kaprow, Alfred Leslie, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Mitchell, Kiki O.K., Claes Oldenburg, Mel Ramos, Robert Rauschenberg, Reinhoud, Jean-Paul Riopelle, James Rosenquist, Antonio Saura, Kimber Smith, K.R.H. Sonderberg, Walasse Ting, Bram Van Velde, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann.

[ii] Walasse Ting, One Cent Life, regular ed. (New York: Klipstein & Kornfeld, Berne, 1964). 

[iii] A. F. Page, “An Action Painting,” Bulletin of The Detroit Institute of Arts 39, 1 (1959-60): 12.

[iv] Wake Forest University, Print Collection, One Cent Life, www.wfu.edu/art/pc/pc-ting.html (accessed November 29, 2007).

[v] Walasse Ting, “Near 1 Cent Life,” Art News 65, 3 (May 1966): 67.

[vi] Ting, “Near 1 Cent Life,” 38; Ting, One Cent Life, regular ed. 1964, tp.

[vii] Willemijn Stokvis, Cobra: An International Movement in Art After the Second World War (New York: Rizzoli, 1988): 20.

[viii] Carnegie Institute, Museum of Art, Fresh Air School, (Pittsburgh: The Institute, 1972).

[ix] Corlett, Prints of Lichtenstein, 20-21.