London / Amsterdam: The October Gallery / Suzanne Biederberg Gallery, 1988–1992. Seven-piece archive comprising: William Burroughs: Painting (1988), 24-page exhibition catalogue, 14.6 × 20.3 cm; folding October Gallery invitation with contemporary annotations dated 11 May 1990; promotional handbill for The Seven Deadly Sins, 1991; illustrated exhibition postcard with contemporary notes dated 28 April 1992; press release for The Seven Deadly Sins, 29 April–23 May 1992; portfolio information and price sheet; exhibition checklist and price list. Offset-printed catalogue and gallery ephemera on paper and card; colour and black-and-white illustrations.
Condition: Good overall. General handling, toning, rubbing, folds and creasing across the group. The catalogue remains firmly bound with light surface wear. The invitation and postcard contain unattributed contemporary handwritten notes recording visits to the gallery. Price sheets have old folds, edge wear and staple holes. Complete as assembled.
The 1988 catalogue accompanied Burroughs’s exhibitions at Suzanne Biederberg Gallery and October Gallery — among his earliest solo presentations outside the United States. It reproduces sixteen paintings alongside James Grauerholz’s essay On Burroughs’ Art, locating the writer’s experiments with painting, collage and gunshot within his long exchange with Brion Gysin.
By 1991, those methods had become the basis of The Seven Deadly Sins. Burroughs produced seven images from painted plywood and Mylar subjected to shotgun fire, then translated them into large woodcut and screenprinted pairs with accompanying texts. The portfolio was issued in an edition of 90, with proofs, while a separate clothbound book was produced in a trade edition of 2,000. The London handbill offered the book for £26 and announced that 150 copies were available in Britain.
The following year, October Gallery presented the portfolio alongside paintings and works connected to Gysin. Its price sheet offered the complete seven-part set for £9,800, or individual image-and-text pairs for £1,550. The accompanying checklist records works in gouache, mixed media, silkscreen and gunshot plywood, with prices running from £375 to £7,000.
Together, the group follows Burroughs’s visual work through catalogue, invitation, postcard, press release, stock announcement and sales documentation. The handwritten dates remain beside the printed ones; exhibition history and private attendance occupy the same surfaces.
Securely packed; tracked UK and international shipping available.
