Tom Chimes Alfred Jarry (Departure from the Present), 1973 Oil on panel 24 1/4 x 19 3/8 inches Private Collection Jarry’s visionary writings continue to inspire Chimes’s work to this day, and perhaps not surprisingly his visage appears throughout the panel portrait series. Chiefly known today as the creator of the anarchic play Ubu Roi (King Ubu), the French Symbolist writer and playwright has been a talismanic figure for Chimes since the mid-1960s, when he first came across a reference to his work in a book by Picasso by Alfred Barr. When it opened in Paris in 1896, Ubu Roi provoked a riot that ushered in the modern era of theater. This work, whose source was a photograph taken by Nadar in 1896, depicts Jarry with his distinctive mane of shoulder length dark hair, oval face, and piercing black eyes.