BOOK:Paul Thek-Notebook #41 (1977), Pace Publishing

Paul Thek was one of the most prescient artists to emerge during the 1960s, yet his work remained largely unrecognized for decades. His artistic career began in the early 1950s, pursuing studies in New York City at the Art Students League, the Pratt Institute, and the Cooper Union School of Art. This path eventually led him to Miami, where he found a vibrant artistic community that included set designer Peter Harvey, photographer Peter Hujar, and playwright Tennessee Williams.

By Dimitris Lempesis

A decade later, after a transformative visit to the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo in 1963, Thek burst onto the New York scene with a groundbreaking solo exhibition at Eleanor Ward’s Stable Gallery. Here, he showcased his “meat pieces”—later known as the “Technological Reliquaries” series—consisting of hyper-realistic wax sculptures depicting hunks of flesh, both human and otherwise. Encased in slick, colored Plexiglas vitrines, these works catapulted him to the forefront of the art world, directly challenging the prevailing trends of Pop Art and Minimalism by merging an earnest, posthuman embodiment with sharp contemporary critique. His renown continued to grow with the early support of Pace Gallery, marked by his inclusion in a 1965 group exhibition alongside Richard Artschwager, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Morris, and Lucas Samaras, followed by a solo presentation in 1966 that introduced new additions to the “Technological Reliquaries” series.

Having begun his career as a painter, Thek left behind more than 100 composition notebooks containing watercolors, diary entries, poetry, correspondence, ideas for installations, and elaborate transcriptions of texts by philosophers and theologians. Considered by Thek to be standalone artworks in their own right, these notebooks provide an unparalleled window into his vivid imagination, which he translated into sculpture, painting, and immersive environments.

This edition of “Notebook #41”  (1977), published by Pace Publishing, offers an intimate, up-close experience of this foundational aspect of his practice. Through its rich pages of watercolors, lists, scribbles, notes, and sketches, Notebook #41 reveals the inner life and creative process of a legendary artist whose influence continues to resonate today.