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In September this year it will be 55 years since Colin McCahon exhibited his announcement notice board for the exhibition Object and Image. The hand-painted board is probably his first word painting, a pre-cursor to paintings like I am that were made the following year. In March 1954, a little earlier, at New York’s Sidney Janis Gallery, Magritte’s Word vs. Image was another impressive exhibition that was to prove a huge influence on younger artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Magritte introduced writing into his paintings in the mid-1920s and the 1928 painting Le paysage isolé (The lonely landscape) included words within a voice balloon, an idea to be echoed by McCahon in his 1947 Crucifixion according to St Mark.

1954 was also the birth year of Mike Kelly who was included in the 1990 exhibition Word as Image: American Art 1960-1990 at the Milwaukee Art Museum. If you want to rent an exhibition called Object and Image, you can do it here (you'll need to open the link Man Ray Prospectus NEW.indd). The exhibition will cost you $120,000 and features surrealist photographer Man Ray. Or you could get in touch with the British Arts Council who have an Object and Image show on tour right now.