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Letter from the Hotel Chelsea
Letter from the Hotel Chelsea
Letter from the Hotel Chelsea

Letter from the Hotel Chelsea

Artist (American, born 1940)
Printer (American, 1938 - 2007)
Date1979
Mediumscreen print on cotton
ClassificationsGraphic
Credit LineGift of Betty Hahn, 2015
Object number2015.2.22
DescriptionWhite cotton t-shirt with hand-screened logo of the Hotel Chelsea in black ink.
Text Entries

The hand-screened t-shirt is part of Hahn’s portfolio “Letter from the Chelsea Hotel,” 1979. The portfolio is based on a letter written from the Chelsea Hotel in New York City by Diane Luppi, a former student of Betty Hahn’s at the University of New Mexico.

 

 Text inblack on the t-shirt reads: “HOTEL CHELSEA/WEST TWENTY THIRD STREET/AT SEVENTH AVENUE/NEW YORK, N.Y. 10011/’A LANDMARK OF N.Y.C.’”.

 

See “Betty Hahn, Photography or Maybe Not,” (UNM Press, 1995), p. 188.

Using a letter she received from a former student, Diane Luppi, as a starting point, Betty Hahn created prints that reproduce each handwritten page and the envelope in which the letter was mailed. Each sheet bears the prominent logo of the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, the historic home of many well-known artists, actors, writers, and musicians -- and thus a pilgrimage site for their fans and admirers. The letter offers a vivid verbal snapshot of Luppi’s visit to New York in the late 1970s.
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