Donkey
36 x 28 inchesDonkey
1999
Color Grano lithograph on paper
paper: 36 x 28 inches
frame: 49 x 41 1/4 inches
edition of 99
signed and dated "99" by Jeff Koons in pencil lower right recto
numbered by the artist lower left recto
Pristine condition
Exhibited
Rockford, Illinois, Rockford Art Museum, Technicolor Constellations: Tales from the Permanent Collection, May 11 – September 23, 2021
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Jeff Koons: A Retrospective, June 27- October 19, 2014
Literature
Eckhard Schneider, Jeff Koons (Bregenz: Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2001), Text by Alison Gingeras, p. 119
Jorg Schellman, ed., Forty Are Better Than One. (New York: Edition Schellmann, 2009), pp. 195, 413 (color ill.)
Additional Photos
The Jeff Koons Donkey lithograph from the "Easy Fun" series of animal shapes was created in 1999. For this limited edition of only 99 impressions, Jeff Koons created a shaped outline of a Donkey, and used richly colored lithographic inks to simulate a watercolor effect, so the print looks unique.
JEFF KOONS BALLOON DOG
The Jeff Koons Donkey lithograph from the Easy Fun
series of animal shapes was created in 1999. For this limited edition of only 99 impressions, Jeff Koons created a shaped outline of a Donkey, and used richly colored lithographic inks to simulate a watercolor effect, so the print looks unique.
Executed in 1999, Donkey is an exquisite and monumental ode to childhood and innocence that formed the central painting in Jeff Koons' Easy Fun series. Koons' Easyfun series came after the lengthy process of creating his Celebration, which have remained in production to this day. The Celebration series consisted of paintings and sculptures that also explored and celebrated childhood experiences. Koons himself explained that they were intended in part as postcards to his son, who was taken by his mother, La Cicciolina, to Italy following the end of their marriage. When he began the Easyfun series in 1999, childhood was on Koons' mind for very different reasons: he had remarried, and had a young family again. Being a father and finding himself immersed in the world of childhood once more, Koons was able to appreciate the overwhelming power of the unique perspective we enjoy during youth and which is channeled so effectively in the visual feast of cereal, toys and cream of Donkey.
The Easyfun series includes a series of large brightly colored mirrors in the shape of cartoon animal heads. The mirrors are displayed together creating an installation that suggests grandeur. They are also displayed at eye level 'transforming the gallery into a child’s room.’ It is impossible to look at these giant works without seeing yourself in their polished, reflective surfaces.
The two words which form the title of the series 'easy' and 'fun' provoke the question, should fun ever be difficult or hard? Easy fun implies instant pleasure or gratification and suggests perhaps something more adult than what seems at first playful.
The Easyfun series also includes several colorful abstract paintings with cartoon-like forms that are painted in a photorealist way. (Photorealism is a style of painting that is meticulously detailed and looks like photographs.) The original source images for these paintings look like commercial images from cheap advertising; the things depicted include junk food, kitchen utensils, frozen vegetables and body parts such as lips.
For the Easy Fun series, Jeff Koons used computer technology to merge populist icons into desktop collages, which he transformed into traditional oil paintings rendered with photorealist precision. Drawn from glossy magazines and advertisements, the imagery includes smiley-faced sandwiches, spiraling roller coasters, succulent lips and abstract juice splashes.
These hybrids of fun and fantasy celebrate childhood pleasures and adult sexual desire: in keeping with Koons's stated intention to communicate with the masses,
the cheerful works are accessible to all.
