Apples 2 for 25

This work was produced by Billy Apple in London in 1962. An offset lithograph on canvas, the work has a mass-produced metal bar running across the surface of the image on which a plastic tag declares the cost of the apples that appear luridly beneath it. Apples 2 for 25¢ was modified in 1964 when the artist moved to New York. This work is closely related to a cast bronze sculpture produced at the same time and also in Te Papa's collection called Apples (Green and Red).

The American Supermarket
Apples 2 for 25¢ was shown in an exhibition called The American Supermarket at the Bianchini Gallery in New York in 1964. It was there that Apple's work was dubbed 'Pop-conceptual' by art dealer Leo Castelli, thereby distinguishing the artist's work from that of other New York pop artists of the 1960s, such as Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns.

What's in a name?
Apple's 'pop-conceptual' works from the early 1960s are the result of the young Royal College of Art graduate Barrie Bates changing his name to Billy Apple in London in November 1962. A major artistic career trajectory developed from his subsequent focus on brand-imaging in his work and personal identity. Apple's name became his art in a move that was less a change of name than a conceptual re-branding. As Wystan Curnow has observed, 'It is as though Monet had changed his name to Claude Waterlilly.' Apples 2 for 25¢ is a classic Apple work from the radical and transforming period of his career - the moment at which he was launched as an artist of international significance during a period of important change in international art practice.