1990

Vandals slash a Rosenquist painting as well as a Roy Lichtenstein painting on view in art dealer Leo Castelli’s booth at the International Art Fair FIAC in Paris. Castelli does not press charges. F-111 (1964–65) is included in High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which is curated by Kirk Varnedoe and Adam Gopnik.

1992

Rosenquist is awarded the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by Jack Lang, French Minister of Culture. Gagosian Gallery, New York, hosts the exhibition James Rosenquist: The Early Pictures 1961–1964, in which Rosenquist for the first time displays a small number of his preparatory collages for paintings. The collages are also published for the first time, in the exhibition’s catalogue. He is represented in the exhibition Hand-Painted Pop: American Art in Transition, 1955–62 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. A limited number of Rosenquist’s preparatory collages are shown in this exhibition as well, and are reproduced in the accompanying catalogue. Rosenquist begins painting the series Gift Wrapped Dolls (1992–93),²⁵ which the artist describes as a response to the AIDS crisis. In the
fall the Gift Wrapped Dolls paintings are featured in the exhibition James Rosenquist: Recent Paintings at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris. He completes the monumental print Time Dust, measuring approximately seven by thirty-five feet.

1996

Rosenquist’s collaboration with Graphicstudio/University of South Florida, Tampa, is honored in the exhibition James Rosenquist: A Retrospective of Prints Made at Graphicstudio 1971–1996, installed at the College of Fine Arts, University of South Florida. In the spring Rosenquist is featured in a solo show at the Leo Castelli Gallery, New York. He creates a series of twenty-six gun paintings, which are featured in the spring in the exhibition Target Practice: Recent Paintings by James Rosenquist at Feigen, Inc., in Chicago.

Rosenquist designs a set of six espresso cups and saucers for Italian coffeemaker Illycaffè, which are introduced in late April as the Italian Riviera collection. The cups are decorated with a motif of colorful paper strips, described by the artist as “colored pieces from a straw hat.”²⁶ In November he begins discussions with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, for a mural commission of “an updated version of F-111.”²⁷

1998

Rosenquist paints Celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Eleanor Roosevelt in response to a commission from the city of Paris for a mural to mark the anniversary; it is intended for installation on the ceiling of the Palais de Chaillot, a government building, but remains in the artist’s collection after a change in city leadership. He completes the three-painting suite The Swimmer in the Econo-mist (1997–98), which is installed in the spring at Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin as the institution’s first commissioned work and second show. The exhibition space is located on Unter den Linden, in former East Berlin, on the ground floor of Deutsche Bank’s offices, and the exhibition celebrates the cooperative endeavor between Deutsche Bank and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The subjects of The Swimmer in the Econo-mist are industry, consumerism, and the turbulent nature of the economy as a whole. The painting also refers to the wars that shaped the twentieth century, as the images borrowed from F-111 (1964–65) and Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937) suggest. Hugo Boss designs and produces an edition of 250 “Rosenquist” paper suits in conjunction with the show.