The Toilet in My Studio on Broome Street

About this print: “The Toilet In My Studio On Broome Street” and “The Bathtub In My Studio” were made as a pair. Bright light seems to flood the room from the yellow window illuminating the rest of the image area. The artist’s obsession with detail is evident especially in the treatment of the brick wall and the pattern of the tiled floor. He was apparently sitting in the tub when he made the studies for this piece. The mirror on the wall, the doorway to the studio, and the fire sprinkler head on the ceiling make their appearance in both prints in the pair. The sink is noticeably absent in either image because there was no sink.

About the Broome Street Series: In 1966, fresh out of graduate school, the artist moved to his first real working studio in an industrial loft building at 389 Broome Street in New York City. After living on the second floor for a year, he then moved up to the third floor. Make-shift living in an industrial loft space was a new and fascinating experience and his immediate interior environment became the subject matter for much of his artwork during this period. Paintings done in and about his studio environment were shown in his first major New York exhibition at the Martha Jackson Gallery in 1968. The prints in this series were based on those early paintings and were made by the artist shortly after he moved to his studio at 130 Greene Street.