Top
Heavenly Days Illuminated is a collaboration between premiere poet John Ashbery and celebrated painter Archie Rand. Ashbery invited Rand to create art that would intensify his poem-in-progress, the 69-line, three-stanza “Heavenly Days.” Rand, in turn, was inspired to investigate that space in which the poet does most of his work — the Hudson house — in the belief that this would manifest a specific visual context for Ashbery’s writing.
Over time, Rand produced 47 acrylic-on-Masonite panels, each a portrait of some room, corner, or detail of the house’s interior. When the series of 16-by-12-inch paintings was complete, Ashbery lined them up and assigned them each a “title” — a line from “Heavenly Days” — which he himself inscribed at the base of each painting.
Heavenly Days Illuminated is not only a very beautiful object in itself; as a portrayal of the Hudson house, it is also a window into Ashbery’s creative world, the lovingly planned-out space that provides him comfort and safety and, above all, a sense of possibility.
Over time, Rand produced 47 acrylic-on-Masonite panels, each a portrait of some room, corner, or detail of the house’s interior. When the series of 16-by-12-inch paintings was complete, Ashbery lined them up and assigned them each a “title” — a line from “Heavenly Days” — which he himself inscribed at the base of each painting.
Heavenly Days Illuminated is not only a very beautiful object in itself; as a portrayal of the Hudson house, it is also a window into Ashbery’s creative world, the lovingly planned-out space that provides him comfort and safety and, above all, a sense of possibility.
