Accession Number
1992/1.122

Title
I Hope You Learned Your Lesson

Artist(s)
William T. Wiley

Artist Nationality
American (North American)

Object Creation Date
1974

Medium & Support
color etching, sugarlift and hand-burnished aquatint on J. Barcham Green paper

Dimensions
28 5/16 x 22 1/4 in. (71.8 x 56.5 cm);32 1/16 x 26 in. (81.4 x 66 cm);10 9/16 x 12 3/4 in. (26.7 x 32.3 cm)

Credit Line
Museum Purchase

Label copy
Published by Landfall Press Inc., 63 West Ontario Street, Chicago, IL 60610.

Subject matter
Wiley's use of text here confronts the viewer with an age-old aphorism "I hope you learned your lesson," while infusing the work with a sense of irony and humor by creating the illusion of erasure and rewrites giving an instability to what reads as incontrovertible text. Adding an element of self-reference to the work, Wiley leaves the ghost of his birth year, 1937, visible as an erasure at the bottom left of the print.

Physical Description
Print made to resemble a wood framed chalk board; dated lower left 1974; at lower right, artist's insignia a capital W within a circle.

Primary Object Classification
Print

Collection Area
Modern and Contemporary

Rights
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit http://umma.umich.edu/request-image for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.

Keywords
Conceptual
Minimal
Text-based Art
blackboard
modern and contemporary art
trompe l'oeil