(#86) CAFÉ CHEZ PANISSE:

Edition of 2136 of which 300 copies are signed 1-300, 26 are signed A-Z as artist's proofs, and five sets are signed as progressives.

March 15, 1980 Nine colors 14-5/8" x 24"

Client: Alice Louise Waters, Café Chez Panisse, 1517 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley CA 94709. Telephone (510) 548-5525 Model: Self portrait A-Z: Artist's own use (Le Mois de l'Affiche á Bordeaux Catalog) (facsimile)

Influence: Vienna Secession, Koloman Moser

An argument has recently been advanced, with much fanfare, that Leonardo da Vinci, in a whimsical artistic sleight-of-hand, was himself the model for the famous "Madonna Lisa." Well, of course he was, no matter who it may have been that sat in front of his brush. That's all artists ever draw: they draw the inner landscape or the outer landscape, but it's always the same landscape from different points of view at different times of life and in different moods.

It doesn't much matter that the charming Neapolitan wife of Zanobi del Giocondo posed on-and-off during four years, entertained with music during these sessions that the enigmatic, haunting smile might not depart from her features. The smile which so captivates us emanated not so much from the flesh-and-blood Giaconda as from the labyrinthine mind of a man already in his sixth decade.

Artists are a camera turned inward. Writers are a pen aimed at the self. In our strivings within the kingdom of light and shadow we have only ourselves to contend with, no matter how it may appear to those on the outside.