96 Picadillies
Roth had started to compulsively paint over postcards in the early sixties, explaining that it was easier to paint over printed objects than blank canvases; one of his most famous works, 96 Picadillies, 1977, grew out of this compulsion, having as its starting point Roth's encounter with the collection of postcards of Picadilly Circus owned by Richard Hamilton and his wife Rita Donagh. Initially, six of these cards were printed as a large scale portfolio in 1970; eventually, in 1977, 96 of these altered Picadillies were collected in a book, including the unaltered backs, with cut marks to allow the buyer to re-use them as postcards.
To facilitate my correspondence, since painting and drawing comes more easily to me than thinking and writing, I have been painting over postcards for a quarter of a century, since painting and drawing on unpainted or unmarked paper is harder to do than on paper with something already on it." Dieter Roth. 1977
Each picture from the series emphasised a different aspect of the scene; one postcard was blanked out everywhere except for the buses circling around Eros; another might add black paint judiciously across the scene to suggest a bustling nightscape.
Read more about this topic: Dieter Roth, 1970s