Alan Glass’s drawings from the 1950s are like swirls of smoke on the verge of assuming solid shape, like rock coming alive and metamorphosing, like plants and animals commingling, their branches and limbs, their eyes and tendrils seeking new paths. Utilising the newly invented ballpoint pen from 1954 to 1962, Glass used this modest instrument to create remarkably intricate and detailed drawings, using variations in pressure and density to conjure forth alternately lush and thick, light and crowded shapes with the appearance of inert matter coming alive. Among the several hundred drawings that Glass produced, there are some in which he used such an abundance of ink that the drawings almost take on the texture of paintings. Here, the flimsy paper is saturated to the degree of appearing soaked in the intense blues that have been a frequently recurring element of Glass’s art for almost 70 years. It was the ballpoint-pen drawings that led to Glass’s first solo exhibition, organised at Galerie Le Terrain Vague by André Breton and Benjamin Péret in January 1958.
