Initially trained as a commercial illustrator, John Altoon established himself as an artist who used both an abstract vocabulary that evolved out of his familiarity with Abstract Expressionism and a figurative vocabulary (often erotically charged) that reflected his commercial background. Untitled (F-8A) is associated with the group of so-called advertising satires that Altoon made between 1962 and 1964 and that emulate the techniques while spoofing the content of commercial imagery. These images, which typically include women, can—almost counterintuitively—be read through the lens of feminism. Viewed from the waist up, the well-dressed woman and man of Untitled could portray a bourgeois couple heading home after a sedate evening out—the man lighting up a cigar, one might postulate, after an elegant meal. The full image, however, suggests quite different narratives. The woman may be about to tempt the man rather than the other way around (“Cigars, cigarettes, cigarillos?”). Her left hand is suggestively out of view—or is it in her jacket pocket and, if so, is she hiding something?—and her twisting form could be moving toward or away from the man. The man, as he lights one of the White Owl cigars, implies that he will soon “light her fire.” Indeed, he seems to thrust the cigars still in the box—which echo the shape of his penis below—at the woman. Perhaps Altoon also knew that White Owl marketed its cigars as “invincible.” The sexual innuendo and ambiguity of Altoon’s pastel anticipate the work of a later generation of artists including John Currin and Lisa Yuskavage.
The “F” and number in the parenthetical title of this work come from a posthumous system created to identify Altoon’s mostly untitled drawings; “F” was used to refer to figural drawings, while ANI was used for animals and ABS for abstract compositions.