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Sock It To Me Baby Tube Etching No. 3

A work made of color etching on ivory wove paper.

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  • A work made of color etching on ivory wove paper.

Date:

May 1967

Artist:

Frank Piatek
American, born 1944

About this artwork

Frank Piatek’s use of the tube traces back to several images that impressed him as a young artist. These include pictures of spaghetti that the Pop artist James Rosenquist employed in his paintings, as well as images of American astronauts tethered to their capsules during the first walks in space. “Sock it to me” is an expression that became a popular colloquialism after 1967, when Aretha Franklin recorded her version of Otis Redding’s 1965 song “Respect,” for which it served as a coda. It gained further notoriety when the popular television show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In adopted it as a punch line for a recurring joke.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

Francis Piatek

Title

Sock It To Me Baby Tube Etching No. 3

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 1967

Medium

Color etching on ivory wove paper

Dimensions

Image/plate: 39.1 × 58.1 cm (15 7/16 × 22 7/8 in.); Sheet: 43.4 × 62.2 cm (17 1/8 × 24 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Bequest of Vera Berdich

Reference Number

2010.813

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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