Two Suns

by Muldoon Elder   1965
oil on canvas   43 x 31 inches
Collection of The Stanford Museum

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Carl Djerassi

I remember Carl Djerassi calling me a few years after he had acquired TWO SUNS and complaining about "my lack of ego ". When I asked him what he meant, he explained that although he remmbered that I had pointed out my obscure signature on it to him when he originally thought it was unsigned, he had just spent the better part of an hour fruitlessly attempting to point out the signature to a visiting dignitary and although he knew it was there since he definitely remembered seeing it, would I please tell him the location of the damned signature so that he could put the Doubting Thomas to rest and get on to more important matters?

It was my belief that an artist's blatant signature can frequently spoil the aesthetic purity of a painting so I would blend mine into the paint in a way that I hoped would be unnoticed. His call helped to finalize my feeling that the painting was successful. I can't remember whether or not he ever found the signature.

___M.M.E.